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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. ; 

Chap. I V^. 

t\bbWt^ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



KEPORT 

OP THE 

PROCEEDINGS 



O.N THE OCCASION ol rRB 



ilcccjrfrmt of % $.011$ of ptoterpri 

RESIDENT ABROAD, . 
JULY 4th, 1854, 



CIH AUTHORITIES AND THE CITIZENS OF NEWMPORT. 



COMPILED AND REPORTED 

BY JOSEPH H. BRAGDON. 



Published by Order of the City Goverume:-.!. 



NEWBURYPORT : 
MOSES H SARGENT, PUBLISHES 
10RJS : BKBWSTER St U C S K . PRINTER 

1854. 




.h/s5-/V//yz. 



Note. It ws I pur] -opulent of this re 

port, to give a sketchof tin- i ..._- oi tiie various meetings held ill 

other places, and additional incidents of interest. Also, to give in detail the la 
bors of the various committees from the city government and the citizens, and the 
I individuals who contributed to produce so lau d 

the service might receive the credit due them j hut it was found 
i the matter to such an extent, that it was thought best to abandon the 
ind condense the account r^ much as possible. 



intro: 



A re-union in their native town, of sons and daughters, resi- 
dent abroad ! There is something partaking of grandeur in the 
thought. The natural attachment which exists within the 
breast of man for the place of his birth, is not merely a senti- 
ment, but an affection, purified and strengthened by associa- 
tion. It was implanted within us ere we commenced the 
struggle of life, and it becomes so indellibly impressed that 
time caanot efface it. It clings to us through age with all the 
tenacity of early recollections. This love for the land of our 
birth begets in us a love for those who inhabit it, who become, 
as it were, a part of the land itself; and the part which brings 
it most immediately home to the affections. Imperceptible as 
is this bond of brotherhood to those whose days are passed at 
home, it is fully known to the resident abroad. When we 
meet in distant lands a fellow townsman, a native of the place 
of our birth, stranger though he may be to us, there is an up- 
rising of emotion that we cannot suppress, and the power oi 
this bond is manifest. Instinctively we yearn to grasp him iu 
a cordial embrace, and hear from his own lips a word from our 
old home. Through the plastic power of the imagination, the 
joys of a thousand hours are in one moment brought up before 
us. There is a charm in his very voice that fascinates our 



4 THE XEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION. 

senses. He has breathed the same air, he has trod the same 
soil, he has lent vigor to the same social institutions, and we 
feel that he is our brother. The warmth of the attachment of 
the untamed heart of youth is experienced, and the cup of 
youthful joy is once more at our lips. The heart expands and 
enjoyment is realized. 

But how much greater the happiness the occasion of the 
gathering of thousands of our townsmen, who have been sep- 
arated by distance, and almost forgotten through time, of early 
associates and playmates, whose forms memory would ever re- 
tain, amid the very scenes of early days, in the places where 
association commenced, and in sight of the play-ground of our 
youth. There is magic in the thought. It is passing to youth 
again. The blood courses quicker through our veins ; and the 
fervid delight of boyhood is felt. Caste is forgotten — diplo- 
matic fame, academic honor, legal renown, ministerial em- 
inence, professional celebrity, mercantile distinction, and 
mechanical achievement, all arc forgotten and lost, or bent to 
this superior force of companionship. The ground whereon we 
tread is holy ground — we arc inspired by the scenes . 
us — early days once more are ours. The reminisceii 
youth, long treasured in the brain, come crowding thickly up. 
forming a panorama of the brightest period of our i 

The occasion is one of profit as well as of pleasure. We 
throw aside the conventionalities of life, the mantle of 

and badgG of power, and gather ourselves together, to 
talk ever, with the unfeigned simplicity of brotherly inter- 
course, the incidents of our career. The fortunes and misfor- 
tunes, the trials of fortitude and steady prosperity which make 
up the sum of our lives, since we left our native soil, are re- 
hear.-.'. 1. and in the rehearsal there is 

be estimate 1, and a profit of incalculable worth to future ex- 
perience. It is gratifying and ennobling thus to pause in the 
of an active life, and be permitted to enjoy such a 
season ; to meet our friends, and face to face review our 



INTRODUCTORY. 5 

labors and our struggles. Though classmates in school and 
companions in childhood's sports, the parts we have played in 
the great drama of life are as diversified as character itself. 
The history of the progress of each individual is a distinct vol- 
ume wherein there is much for reflection, much for study and 
deep abiding thought. The union of such fragmentary parts 
forms an integral body, to contemplate which is the highest 
pleasure of the human mind, and leads to heroic action, to the 
foundation of lofty virtues. 

But the occasion has another aspect. It invites us to the 
performance of a sad duty. The graves of our friends speak 
to us in a language that cannot be misinterpreted. From the 
the scenes of our childhood we went forth into the busy world 
to fulfil a destiny which our young ambition had marked out- 
we sought broader fields for our enterprise, and among a 
strange people struggled for distinction and power. We have 
come back to drop the tear of affection upon the soil in which 
is mingled the dust of our ancestors. Whatever may have 
been our course — how great soever the rewards of our toil — 
these stones which rise above the ashes of our early friends, 
point us to a higher destiny, and show us the worthlessness of 
earthly aggrandizement unaccompanied by that moral excel- 
lence that can secure for us a more enduring hope. We turn 
from them with a purer faith, and feel that when we have gone 
from hence, and again mingled ourselves with our fellow-men 
in the activo labors of our vocation, it will afford us a gleam of 
cheer to concentrate our thoughts upon the lessons suggested 
by these silent monitors', and purify the heart with their 
teachings. 

There is a broader view to take of tills subject. Individual 
interest must give way to national prosperity. It is through 
these great moral principles, these high social aims, which first 
spring into life through local influences that the lofty patriotism 
which characterizes our nation is nourished, and its stalwart 
strength supported. It is this which imparts that national 



6 THE NEWBUKYl'ORT CELEBRATION. 

impulse which gives unity to the actions of men, and makes 
the good of the whole a private aspiration. It is this culture 
of the highest social faculties that unites individuals as members 
of one family. It is this that gives harmony to our municipal 
affairs, that sustains the authority of legislative enactments, 
that gives permanency to our institutions, that binds together 
this great confederacy, that renders indissoluble our glorious 
Union. 




PRELIMINARIES. 



Early in April an order was introduced into the City Coun- 
cil providing for the celebration of the then approaching anni- 
versary of our National Independence. The manner of cele- 
brating was considered during several sessions in both branches 
of the city government, and it was finally concluded to make- 
it the occasion of a great family jubilee, by extending to the 
sons and daughters of Newburyport and " Ould Newberry," 
resident abroad, an invitation to come home and join with us 
in the festivities of such a season. An order was passed, a 
committee was chosen, arrangements were laid out and the 
different departments of the order placed in the hands of sub- 
committees, with instructions to speedily and effectively carry 
the same into operation. Nor were the citizens generally 
backward in the movement. Indeed, before the order passed 
through the two branches of the city government, several 
meetings of the citizens were held, and resolutions passed in 
favor of such a re-union and embodied in the strongest terms. 
The feeling was general, and measures were taken to assist 
the city authorities in carrying out the programme to the sat- 
isfaction of all. Private individuals contributed generously, 
and every circumstance promised a happy and glorious oc- 
casion. 

The publication of the invitation was met with a hearty re- 



8 TOE NEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION. 

spon3e from all sections of our country. The press echoed 
the call from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast ; from Texas to 
Maine ; and meetings were called in every place where the 
sons of Newburyport and " Ould Newbury" could be found 
in sufficient numbers to form an organization. In New York. 
Boston, Bangor and other cities, preparations were made to 
visit the old homestead with full ranks. Letters and commu- 
nications were received in great numbers, not only signifying 
an acceptance of the invitation, but expressing the liveliest 
gratification for an occasion which would afford them an op- 
portunity to visit the haunts of their childhood, to pay their 
devotion to the memories of their fathers, and to exchange 
congratulations with the friends of their youth. 

The arrangements were seasonally completed, through the 
the indefatigable labors of members of the various committees. 
The appropriations were judicious and liberal, and everything 
was conducted upon a scale in harmony with the magnitude of 
the occasion. The following programme was adopted: 

PROGRAMME. 

The several Church and Factory Bells will be rung, and National ! 
fired at sunrise and sunset 

At 9 1-2 o'clock, A. M., a Procession will be formed on the Mall, the right 
resting on the southeast end, and moved at 10 o'clock, under the direction of 
the Chief Marshal, Col. Amos Tappah, in the following order 

Military Escort, (Band) Cashing Guard, commanded by 

Capt. Jabez L. Pearson. 

Past members of the Newburyport Artillery Company, commanded by 

Major Ebenczcr Bradbury. 

Aid. Chief Marshal. Ail 

Bis Honor the Mayor, Orator, Officiating Clergyman, Reader of the 

Declaration of Independence. 

City Government. 

Committee of Arrangements. 

City Clerk, Treasurer, Assessors, 

Assistant Assessors, Clerk Common Council 

School Committee. 

Overseen of the Poor. 



PRELIMINARIES. 

Selectmen of Newbury and West Newbury, 

Town Clerks of Newbury and West Newbury 

Iustnu-tors of Public Schools. 

Reverend Clergy of the City. 

Revolutionary Soldiers 

United States Officers— Civil, Military and Naval. 

State and County Officers. 

Hand 

Invited Sons and Former Residents of Newburyport. 

Citizens of Newburyport, Newbury and West Newbury. 



SECOND DIVISION. 

Band. 
Aid. Marshal 

FLORAL PROCESSION 
No. 1— Flora 

No. 2 — Landing of Pilgrims. 
No. 3 — May Flower. 
No. 4 — Goddess of Liberty. 

No. i — Ages : — Childhood, Youth, Manhood. Old Age 
No. 6 — Naiads. 
No. 7 — Dryads. 
No. S — Morning. 
No. .9— Night 
No. 10 — Spring. 
No: 11 — Summer. 
No 12 — Autumn. 
No. 13— Winter 
No. U— Old Lady in the Shoe. 



THIRD DIVISION. 
Marshal. 

Engineers of the Fire Department. 

FIRE DEPARTMENT. 

With their Machines, in the following order 

Han.!. 

■ Deluge " Company, No. l , 

With [heir invited guests, 

■'(.in Washington" Company. No 3, of Milford 

Ifechanic" Company, No. 2. 



10 TIIE NEWBDRTPOKT CELEBRATION. 

Band. 

" Protector " Company, No. 3, with their invited guests, 

" Tiger," No. 1, of ITavcrhill. 

" Tiger" Company, Xo. 4. 

" Eagle" Company, No ">. 

" Agile " Company, No 6. 

"Torrent" Company, No. 7. 

Band. 

"Neptune" Company, No. 8. 

" Warren " Company, Hook and Ladder. 



FOURTH DIVISION. 

Marshal. 

Band. 

TRADES. 

Mr. John Emery with his Vessel. 



FIFTH DIVISION. 

Marshal. 

Marrine Society. 

Howard Benevolent S 

St. Mark's Lodge of Free and Accepted M 

St. John's Lodge. 

Quascacunquen Lodge of Odd Fellows, 

Strangers and Citizens generally. 



SIXTH 1>1VIM«i\. 
Marshal. 
Cavalcade, 



ROUTE OF PROCESSION. 
The Procession will move precisely at 10 o'clock, A. M., through the fol- 
lowing streets : 

I'm vn High street to Federal, down Federal to Water, counter-march up 

i o Orange, through Orange to Fair, down Fair to Essex, through 

i State, up State to High, up High to Cent, counter-march down 

Market, down Market to Washington, through Washington 10 

< Ireen, down Green to Merrimack, thro .. Market Square, Statu 

and Pleasant street-, to the Church. 



PRELIMINARIES. 11 

I >RDEE OF EXERCISES AT THE PLEASANT STREET CHURCH. 

1 . Voluntary on the Organ. 

2. Chorus — " Praise the Lord, ye Nations all " — from Mozart's 12th Mass, 
.'). Reading of the Scriptures and Invocation, hy Rev. D. M. Reed. 

4. " Song of Welcome," by Hon. George Lunt, music by M. D. Randall. 

5. Reading Declaration of Independence, by Hiram B. Haskell. 

6. Ode. by Jacob Haskell, music " Star Spangled Banner." 

7. Oration, by Rev- George D. Wildes. 

8. Chorus, " Hallelujah," from the Oratorio of the Messiah. 
!>. Benediction, by Daniel Dana, D. D. 

The musie will beperformed by a select choir, under the direction of M. 
D. Randall, Esq. Organists, Messrs J. W. Cheney and R. P. Morse. 

PUBLIC DINNER. 
After the services at the church, the procession will be formed anew, and 
proceeded to the PAVILLION, erected on Congress street, and partake of a 
DINNER provided by Horace Uamblet, Esq., Landlord of the Ocean 
House. 

PROGRAMME OF FIREWORKS. 
From Chickering street, west of Frog Pond. 
Signal and Colored Rockets will be fired from sunset until 9 o'clock, when 
the exhibition will commence with 

No. 1. A Grand Illumination— Of Indian White Fires, intermingled 
with crimson and green. 

Rockets, Gold Rain. 

2. Candles and Jets— A battery of Roman Candles, with silver and 
colored Stars, mutate to jets of Mexican Fire, with heavy reports. 

Mines and Shells. 

3. Double Ciiai-lets — Horizontal AVheels of Chinese and Jessamine 
Fire, mutate to cluster of Stars and explosion of Bees. 

Rockets, Colored Stars. 

4. Constellation — A Circle of Stars in Crimson, blue and purple lance 
extend to jets of Sun Fires, with reports. 

Torbillons. 

5. A Greeting to Visiting Friends — A highly ornamental and unique 
piece, silver and colored. 

Flight of Rockets. 

6. Eotptian Pyramids — Vertical Wheels of purple and blue Fires form 
the ball of pyramids of Colored Stars, and centres of contra revolving polkas. 

Mines. 

7. The Day We Celeruate. — The motto "July 4," in letters of Fire, 
is surmounted by the_ American Eagle and Arms, from which extend a Glory 
of Sun Fires. 

Rockets. 



12 THE NEV7BURTP0RT CELEBRATION. 

6 Mosaic Battery— A Fanciful Design in lance, mutates to a Batten 
uf Mines, Shells and Marions. 

Torbillons. 

y. Peruvian- Cross— Decorated with crimson and purple lance, wit! 

revolving centre, mutating to gerbs of Jessamine Tires with petards. 

Floral Shells. 

in— Cm eajjtines. Or Messengers.traversinga wire several hundred feet 

Rocket, Silver Stars. 
11. tJCADECPLE Star and Palms — A gorgeous Star, in blue, white, 
crimson and green, lance mutate to Palm Trees,, tinged with green. 
Diamond Battery. 
I-'. The Union — The American Eagle and Arms are supported by thir- 
• D Stars, above which appear in letters of fire, the word "Union." 
Kockets. 

13. Morning Glory.— A large Piece, composed of Wheels of variegated 
colors, revolving around a solar centre, and extending to Sun Fins witl 
reports. 

Torbillons. 

14. Girandole — A. superb Piece of Pvroteehic, formed of variegated 
lance work, representing an immense Girandole, or Candelabra, with crystal 
Pendants of purple, blue, violet and crimson lance ; the arms are decorated 
with Candles of Silver and Colored Stars. 

Mines of Serpents. 
I J. Shield of Iris — A large revolving Disc of Jessamine and Chines 
Fires, displays a triple contra revolving centre of Polkas, Saxons and Fivers 
tinged with purple, crh'j- 

Kockets. 

16. The Lyre — A representation of the "Lyre," in silver and coloreu 
lance, partially encircled witli a Wreath of Laurel, and surmounted ! v a 
Floral base 

Floral Sheik 

17 Florentine Wheel Piece — A ! 'yramidical arrangement of Wheel:, 
and Fivers, with a centre of Polkas and Saxons, coding with a discharge o'. 
Italian Streamers. 

E inale — The Sea', of the i'iti oi 1 1 is supported by twl 

ornamental columns enwreathed with fillets, and bearing upon the capitals 

tli mottoes, in silver and colored lance, "July, 1854." The \ 

■ iv Seal, and is adorned with a halo of radiating Sun Fires 
the whole forming's brilliant centre, from which extend jets and batteries of 
in and Shells, which, with a heavy Sight of rockets are' 
/'tie 



PRELIMINARIES. 13 

For several days before the Fourth the return of sons com- 
menced, and ere its arrival, our streets were filled with the 
familiar forms of those whose early days were passed in our 
midst. Never before have we known such stirring times, — 
everything in the shape of a team for miles around, was 
pouring in with supplies for the anticipated crowd, and every 
room that could be found unoccupied, was converted into a 
saloon for the sale of refreshments. Everybody was at work, 
families ia laying in an abundance, and others in preparations 
of an ornamental nature. 

The setting of the sun on the third, found everything ready, 
and the crowds of strangers already present, showed that no 
dissatisfaction would be felt. The trains through the day 
from every quarter were heavily laden with returned sons and 
daughters from the most distant sections of the country. 



THE JUBILEE. 



The booming of cannon, the ringing of bells, the sharp 
rattle of musketry, together with blasts of horns and the harsh 
discord of a thousand instruments of clamor, in the hands of 
juveniles, announced that the long anticipated day had ar- 
rived. The sun rose in all its majesty upon a city whose peo- 
ple were jubilant with anticipation. One thing was evident — 
a warm reception was to be experienced, to prepare for which 
our city authorities had wisely set the sprinkling machine over 
the route of procession. Never have we witnessed a more 
cheering spectacle than that presented throughout the entire 
route. Our city was in a holiday dress — a dress that was 
significant of the intense feeling of the people. There was no 
laborious formality displayed — no garb of vanity adopted. Ev- 
ery decoration, every motto, every design, spoke to the heart 
of a patriotism and hospitality that was as pure as the spotless 
surface which reflected them ; and the cheerful countenances, 
everywhere met, were but the index of hearts overrunning with 
joy and gratitude. 

At an early hour the several divisions commenced forming 
at the places assigned them, in and around the Bartlett Mall. 
The Chief Marshal, with the military escort, proceeded to the 
depot of the Eastern Railroad, where an immense crowd of 
citizens had assembled, to receive the various delegations. — 
Owing to the length of the train the cars were behind their 



THE RECEPTION. 



15 



usual time, and the train containing the Boston delegation did 
not reach here until half past nine o'clock ; they were re- 
ceived hy the Chief Marshal and escorted to the City Hall.— 
Owing to the irregularity in the arrival of the delegations from 
other cities, there was no formal reception at the depot, though 
they came from several cities and towns in large numbers.^ 

The last of the delegations having been received, the invited 
sons and former residents were eseorted to the City Hall, where 
the Mayor and City Council were in readiness to receive 
them, and proceeded to High street for the formation of the 
procession. Upon reaching the Hall, an immense crowd was 
collected there, and in Brown's Square, numbering many 
thousands. Col. Tappan, in brief and appropriate terms, in- 
troduced the gueBts to the Mayor, who received them with 
these remarks : 

Sons and former residents op Newbcrt-port— 

On this occasion, the anniversary of our National Independence, in behalf 
of the City, I bid you a cordial and heartfelt welcome to the place of your 
birth and former residence. Never has an event been looked for by our citi- 
zens with so much joy and satisfaction as this, the return of her sons ; and I 
express but the feelings of all, when I say— Welcome, Sons of Newburyport, 
to the place that must be <lear to the hearts of every one of you. 

This is an occasion of no ordinary interest. Many, to-day, that have so 
readily responded to our invitation, have long been absent from the home of 
their nativity, and will see many and great changes. Many with whom they 
had sweet and social converse, in former times, have long since passed from 
earth. The graves of your fathers, the graves of your friends, are ties strong 
enough to bring back the recollections of former days. 

It is with pride the citizens of this city contemplate the position which the 
sons of Newburyport abroad have attained, in whatever calling Providence 
has seen fit to place them. In the professions, in mercantile life, in the me- 
chanic arts, they have attained that high and honorable position, which we, 
your friends and brothers, contemplate with the deepest satisfaction. Well 
may this ancient town and new city be proud of her absent sons. 

We have made no extended preparations on this occasion. We have 
given you no cold and formal invitation to come to your old and venerated 
birthplace and former residence. But we have given you a cordial welcome 
S» the scenes of your childhood and the home of your early associations.— 



16 THE NEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION". 

And this morning, with open arms and warm hearts, we are ready and happy 
to receive yon. 

Friends and brothers — in coming at our request to greet us to-day, you 
come amongst a prosperous, happy and intelligent people. A people that 
are mutually ambitious, and doing all in their power to make this a commu- 
nity moral in its character, industrious in its habits, and independent in all 
its actions. 

Once more, in behalf of our city, I bid you an earnest welcome home ; 
and may this meeting be such, that in after years, we shal 1 say that friend- 
ships have been renewed, and formed, which nothing shall ever sever. 

The Mayor was replied to by Warren Tilton, Esq., Chief 
Marshal of the Boston delegation, as follows : 

Mb. Mayok, and Gentlemen 

We return your greeting, one and all ! For this most warm reception, it 
is needless to say we are grateful. For these eager salutations, these enthu- 
siastic rheerings, these involuntary and unmistakable evidences of rejoicing 
at our presence, we cannot fully thank you. 

Such words as mine will indicate but poorly the character of the emotions 
which struggling within our souls, have no voices for their utterance. Lan- 
guage cannot enunciate them, for we know how limited is the power of lan- 
guage ; and the joyousness and happiness of an occasion like this are aot tv 
be described : they can only be experienced — felt. 

There is something in that word IL feeling" we can all appreciate, and I 
assure you I can add no emphasis to the declaration which I make in behal' 
of myself, and every one in our ranks, that vttfid glad that we are here. 

You tell me that, on this, the day of our XalionaJ Jubilee, you. have sum- 
moned us hither as the sons of Newburyport Like eager rhildren we have 
obeyed your summons — judge yoa with what measure of alacrity. All is 
pleasant and joyous around us. It is a joyous day and a joyous occasion 
hut our thoughts of the occasion and the day are well nigh merged in those- 
of the place — old, stately Newbnryport, God bless her! — the place of our 
birth, the homo of our childhood. 

We have come with full numbers, and fuller hearts. From all ranks ana 
professions in life, with whatever of credit and reputation we have won for 
ourselves, laying aside all our cares and anxieties for a season, forgetting nli 
di 'mucins of position, and pn , - I differences of fuiih and habit, 

we have come hither, in a common brotherhood, at your hid! 
pleasant reunion, to revive old memories, to re-visit old haunts, and be boys, 
" ;ii home again," together. 

We have the young among us, who, in t he morning of tin ir years, have 
yet scarcely tailed the trials of life, we have those who have tii'ed past iu> 



THE PROCESSION. 17 

noon ; we have those whose brows have become wrinkled, and whose limbs 
have grown weary in its dusty pilgrimage ; but, to-day, we are, one and all 
of us resolved to be young again together. 

Wherever we look — everything about us, — the churches and the school- 
houses, (those earliest, noblest, best monuments of the fame of Newburyport) 
the streets, the trees, the dwellings, the bills, the river — the placid and beau- 
tiful Merrimack — all recall the days of our youth, and to-day we shall be 
young again together. 

We shall, indeed, sir, be impressed with the changes you have alluded to. 
We shall revisit the old chnrch-yards, stand over the old graves, spell over 
the old epitaphs, muse over old friends and companions now translated, live 
over old affections, dream over old happinesses, shed anew old tears we 
thought forever quenched, and thus, with the sweet, sad memories of "Long 
ago " addressing the better part of our nature, we shall, at least, to-day, be 
young again together. 

But it is time these words of mine were spoken. This is neither the hour 
nor the place for extended remarks. Once more be assured of onr gratitude 
for the kindness of this reception. We do indeed believe that you are glad 
to sec us here ; and we know that we are glad to have come. Our pulses 
beat and our hearts leap at your words of cheer and commendation. We 
rejoice in the evidences of your prosperity, but when we contemplate its 
sources, there is no room for surprise. Character implies prosperity, and en- 
terprise impels progress, with communities as with individuals. 

Our visit must be, of necessity, a brief one — but a Hail ! and a Farewell ! 
Happiness, however, has no limit of time, and we trust we shall return to 
our adopted home from this, the home of our boyhood, with hearts refreshed 
and purified ; with some of the rust and earthliness of our natures refined 
away ; with higher hopes and nobler courage ; and with a fixed and resolute 
purpose never to prove ourselves so little worthy as that any man should ever 
be sorry to acknowledge us (what we are proud this day to be, every one of 
us,) sons of Newburyport. 



After the services of reception vrere ended, the company 
formed into line and marched to the south east end of the 
Mall, where the various divisions of the procession were in 
waiting. The procession then formed in the following order. 
First 

THE CUSHING GUARD, 
With full ranks, preceded by a band, performed the escort 
for the occasion. More than a passing notice is due this corps, 
which appeared for the first time under their new commander, 



18 TIIE NEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION. 

Capt. Jabcz L. Pearson. In drill and in all their evolutions 
the highest perfection was manifested. In appearance the 
company has few equals, and the praise bestowed by visitors 
must have lightened the fatigues they endured. 

Next was the 

NEWBURYPORT ARTILLERY. 

This veteran corps, now lost in the Cushing Guard, whose 
roll dates back to 1777, and whose service was required in 
war of the revolution, one of the oldest companies in the New 
England States, was represented by some fifty or sixty of the 
past members, under the command of Major Ebenezer Brad- 
bury, the veteran soldier as well as statesman. In the ranks 
wc discovered quite a number of distinguished men, who once 
constituted the pride of this renowed company. They wore 
chapeaus, dark dress and side arms, and took charge of the 
field pieces of the Cushing Guard. In their march and move- 
ments they showed that their knowledge of military tactics 
was fresh, and that the patriotism which distinguished their 
early days was still alive. 



FIRST DIVISION. 
AMOS TAl'l'AX. Chief Mabshal. 

Assistants.— D. S. ISlnk.', Edmund P.nrtlett, George Noyes, Robert Bayley, .Ir 

The Chief Marshal and his Assistants were mounted upon 
noble looking animals, richly dressed for the occasion. 

The Division was comprised of His Honor the Mayoi 
tor, Officiating Clerg\ man. Header of the Declaration of In- 
dependence, the Board of Aldermen, Board of Common Coun- 
cil, Committee of Arrangements, City Clerk, Treasurer, As- 
sessors. Clerk of Common Council, School Committee, Over- 
•f the Poor, Ward Officers, Selectmen and Town Clerks 
of Newbury and West Newbury, Instructors of Public Schools, 
Reverend Clergy, Revolutionary Soldiers, United States Offi- 



THE PROCESSION. 19 

cers— Civil, Military and Naval ; State and County Officers. 
Next came the Boston delegation, as follows : 

BAUD. 

Warden Tiltox, Esq., Chief Marshal, 

Aids— William 1'. Pierce, Caleb S. Marshall. 

Assistant Marshals.— Stephen Tilt I Long, Nathaniel D 

nels, John II. Bradbury, Charles G. Wa d, Nathaniel Foster, Jr., Charles I.- 
Knapp, George Bntlcr, Seth K. St 

Capt. Sam'l G. Adams, Standard Bearer. 

This delegation, in which were many distinguished men — 
clergymen, lawyers, editors, physicians, merchants and me- 
chanics, numbered about 500, each wearing a badge enstamped 
with the seals of the two cities. They had a splendid silken 
banner, prepared by " Cymon," of the Post, that attracted all 
eyes. It bore on one side the simple inscription " Boston ;" 
on the other, " Returned Home, 1854," and was left at the 
City Hall as a memento of the occasion. Other banners were 
carried, with the following mottoes : 

" There is no place like home." 

room, whatever place we see. 
Our hearts untravelled fondly turus to thee." 

" Should old acquaintance be forgot." 

" X" soil upon earth so dear to our eyes, 
As the soil we first stirrcil in terrestrial pies." 

" There is a spot of earth supremely blest, 
A dearer, sweeter land than all the rest, 
Ami thou shait find where'er thy footsteps roam. 
That land thy country, and that spot thy home.'' 

Next were the Invited Sons, who represented perhaps one 
half of the States of the Union and nearly all the principal 
cities. We noticed them from all the New England States, 
Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Ma- 
ryland, District of Columbia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, 
Mississippi, California and Oregon, and there were others 
whose local residence we did not learn. 

It were invidious, perhaps, to single out particular delega- 
tions, but Maine came strong from her sea-shore and inland 
districts, and from Bangor, Bath and Portland they attracted 



20 THE NEWBCRYPORT CELEBRATION. 

particular attention. The largest number from any one place 
in New Hampshire came from Portsmouth, and conspicuous 
among them was the venerable Abner Greenleaf, the first 
mayor of our sister city. In this State many places were 
represented — Lowell, Haverhill, Ipswich, Eoston, Worcester, 
&c, &c. 

SECOND DIVISION. 

Floral Procession. 

This was the grandest display of its kind we have ever had 
in this city , nor have we heretofore been behind any place 
within our knowledge in these exhibitions. Throughout was 
the evidence of refined taste and great industry, which was 
highly creditable to all the parties concerned. So numerous 
were the persons engaged in these preparations, that we for- 
bear to give names that nevertheless deserve grateful recollec- 
tion. The sections appeared as follows : 

Rufdb Giuii'mi, Chief Marshal. 
Aids.— Thomas Makinney, .lames C. Colman. 
The marshals were mounted, and the rich trimmings upon 
their noble looking studs, attracted universal attention. 

SECTION I. 

FLORA. 

Flora's group leads the procession, and was represented by a young lady 
dressed in whits lacs, with a profusion of pink drapery and flowers, llcr 
four winged attendants, in pink and white, surrounded her, scattering (lower-, 
emblematical of the bright and bcautifal gifts she is so constantly showering 
upon us. Her exquisitely designed car, tastefully decorated with cm 
was drawn by two gray horses, and canopied with tri-co!ored clot] 
which were the mottoes, "Hail, lovely Flora !" " Flowers, bright flowers, 
sweet messengers of love." " We are the sweet flowers, born of sunny show- 
ers." Following her car were thirty children, bearing flowers and banner", 
with these mottoes : " Flowers are the smiles of Nature, and earth would 
seem a desert withon t them." 

1 Flowers bloom by the lowlie 

d brighten, and bless our lot." 
comet from hei sunn] ! 

And decks the ,'arth with her gift of B 



THE PROCESSION. 21 

8ECTION II. 

LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS. 

The design of this group although suggested previous to any knowledge 
of the existence of such as the one recently on exhibition in Boston, was 
afterwards executed with strict reference to that picture, and was found to 
be a truthful transfer of its pecularities in point of coloring and style of dress. 
This cluster composed the first party who left the Mayflower, and landed 
from the boat on Plymouth Rock. 

Prominent among these is Gov. Carver, whose tall figure and manly 
appearance indicates his character and dignity. His suit is of black, the 
body plain, and tight fitting — sleeves large and open in front, disclosing the 
shirt sleeves, while a tunic of the same material falls from the waist. The 
small clothes are very full, secured at the knee with buckles, and the dress is 
finished by long black hose and low shoes. Miles Standish claims a second 
place in point of conspicuousness. His dress was military; composed of a 
jacket of blue, with buff sleeves and tunic, black small clothes, anl bull 
boots. His hat was black, ornamented with a red feather. Edward Winslow 
stands near Carver, and wears a dark suit of the olden time. By his side 
was Mrs. Winslow, wearing a purple dress and blue hood. Mrs. Allcrton 
was kneeling on the rock and wore a crimson silk skirt, supposed to be a relic 
of former days, beneath a blue dress. Over all was thrown a drab cloak , 
and a green shawl was tied over the head. Leaning upon her shoulder was 
Mrs. Standish, in a red hood, maroon colored sack trimmed with fur, and 
dark green dress. Elder Brewster was personated in a tall, thin figure, 
whose long grey beard, black skull cap, and grey, bushy hair, suggested his 
clerical character. His dress added to the ert'ect. It consisted of a black, 
loose gown, black small clothes, stockings, &c. Mrs. Brewster stood near 
him, supporting her aged form upon a staff. Her dress was dark, and 
becoming an old lady. Mrs. Hopkins, with her infant child in her arms, 
wore a dress of gray, and over her head was thiown a shawl of the same 
color. Mrs. Carver's place was at the left of her husband ; on one arm she 
supported her little infant, and with the other hand led a little child, whose 
caresses are bestowed upon a favorite dog. Behind these appeared William 
Bradford and John Howland, the former dressed in a dark suit, and the latter 
in a suit of blue, bearing on his shoulder a pickaxe and shovel. This group 
was preceded by a banner bearing a representation of Plymouth Kock, carried 
by a person in the costumo of primitive times, and followed by the May 
Flower, rigged as if moored in the bay. A procession of boys, headed by the 
motto, "The Pilgrim spirit is not fled," each carrying some implement of 
agriculture, and dressed in uniform, brought up the rear. 

SECTIOX III. 

THE MAY FI.< IWER, 
The May Flower was represented by a boat of about two tons bnrtbep, 
rigged in polacre style, to imitate the example of those days. In her whole, 



22 THE NEWBCRYPORT CELEBRATION. 

arrangement, she was a perfect picture of our idea of her model. Her 
commander, Master George Bray, and a full complement of lads for a crew, 
with a young negro lad as steward, were in full sailor rig, and performed 
their part like experienced seamen. The Messrs. Pritchard, riggers, are 
entitled to much praise for the effective manner in which they contributed to 
the perfection of this part of the programme. 

SECTION rv. 

THE GODDESS OF LIBERTY. 
Was represented by a young lady, dressed in a free flowing robe of red, 
white and blue, leaning upon a shield, and holding in her hand the liberty 
pole and cap ; on her head was a helmet of silver. The temple in which she 
stood was hexagonal, and on its sides were the names of the six first 
Presidents of the Republic. The American flag floated over her. Her 
followers, symbolical of the States of the Union, thirty-one in number, are 
dressed in the American colors, having each a star on the left shoulder ; each 
boy bore a banner with the name of the State he represented. Some of the 
mottoes in this group were, "Glory's wreath never fades." "The States of 
the Union — distinct as the billows, and one like the sea." "With the shout 
of freedom, round thy brow, Columbia, we fresh laurels twine." 

6ECTION V. 

AGE. 

Representation of the four stages of Life, viz : — Childhood, Youth, Manhood, 
and (M Aye. 

This car was overhung by a white canopy, enscalloped with green, which 
hung over the four sides of the vehicle, and bore in evergreen letters these 
mottoes : — "Our lot on earth is but continual change." "So flourishes and 
and fades majestic man." "Time brings not back the Past." "Life is on- 
ward." The frame of the car was ornamented with trimmings of evergreen, 
the interior hung with scarlet drapery. 

Childhood was portrayed by three children, simply attired in white and 
blue, reclining among flowers, one blowing soap bubbles, one caressing a fa- 
vorite spaniel, and one trundling a hoop. Youth was represented by a lad, 
attired as an archer, in a tunic of green, with rose-colored 6ash, white trows- 
ers, &c.; ho bore upon his shoulders a quiver of arrows and stood leaning up- 
on his bow ; the young lady, his companion, wore a rose-colored bodice and 
white skirt, with green trimmings ; she held a guitar fancifully wreathed with 
evergreen. "Manhood" was personated by a gentleman, engaged in mer- 
* cantile pursuits, seated at his desk, surrounded by the insignia of his calling 
on every side ; a lady dressed with the simple elegance befitting a matron, 
busied herself with needle work. In "Age" we had a glimpse of homelifo 
at the time of the Revolution, and one might almost fancy that his great 



THE PROCESSION. 23. 

grand-parents strode before him in the cocked hat, small clothes, and knee 
buckles which the gentlemen wore, and the mob-cap, brocade dress and trim 
ruff of the lady. The devotional and industrious habits of that period were 
portrayed by the open Bible on the old man's knees, and the spinning-wheel 
near the old lady. 

Two young gentlemen in antique costume preceded this car, bearing scar- 
let banners, with blue centres, on which, in golden letters, appeared these 
inscriptions : 

time's chasges. 

" Careless childhood, crowned with flowers, 

Ushers in life's summer dory. 

And brave manhood's golden hours, 

Yield to Age, the wise and hoary." 

HUMAN LIFE. 

'• Time and change, alike unheeding, 

Baste we onward day by day, 
Angel-guides our footsteps leading, 

Safely o'er the unknown way." 

At the corners of the car were four small banners of green with bronze 
centres, on which in letters of gold, were seen these mottoes, referring to the 
different eras of our existence. Childhood: "Heaven lies about us in our 
infancy." Youth : "The years to come are ours." Manhood : "Touch us 
gently, time." Age: " The shadows lengthen on our paths." These were 
carried by four lads, dressed in white with green trimmings ; four marshals 
also attended the car, wearing black velvet jockeys, dark jackets and white 
pants. The followers to this group were twenty-four in number, dressed in 
uniform of white pants and grass-green sacks, and having their hats wreathed 
with oak leaves ; the marshals for these were attired in the costume of 1 770. 
Immediately following them was a country wagon, in which was seated a 
thrifty farmer and his buxom wife, surrounded by the produce of their farm, 
being a true picture of "going to market" in the time of the "embargo." — 
Next a young gentleman carried a white standard, with these words upon it : 
"Fashion is a capricious dame." Then a procession of young ladies wearing 
the identical dresses which were in vogue when " Independence was de- 
clared," and who formed a very interesting feature in the programme. 

Following which was the old sulky once owned by Mr. Bartlett, decorated 
with evergreen, with a motto upon the back "1776," harnessed to which was 
a nag, apparently as old as the vehicle. This contained two ladies dressed 
in costume, the very extravagance of the antique. The horse was led by Mr. 
Albert Tilton, in ancient costume, powdered wig, &c. 

SECTION VI. 

NAIADS. 

These were represented by three maids, reclining in a grotto, shaded by 
vines and adorned by shells. The Naiads were dressed in white flowing 
robes, with mantles of green — trimmings of water-lilies, corals and shells. — 



24 THE NEWDLUYPORT CELEBRATION. 

They were preceded by a banner representing Neptune, their King ; and 
followed by eighteen lads— a hand of sailors dressed as such, white pants, 
and white shirts with blue collars, the corners starred as in the navy, without 
jackets, and with hats banded by wide ribbons. These supported a banner- 
mottoes, " We are vassals, willing vassals of ocean's restless tide." " The 
world of waters is our home." 

SECTION VII. 

DRYADS. 

Next in order came the Dryads, represented by three maidens grouped 
around a youth, representing the rural god, Pan. They were gracefully 
dressed in white, with scarfs of green thrown carelessly over the shoulders.— 
They also wore wreaths of evergreen on their heads, and oak-leaf trim- 
mings on their dresses. Two farmers followed this group, the first bearing 
the motto — 

"While universal Pan, 
Knit with the graces and the hours in dance, 
Led in the eternal spring." 

On the second was the following : 

"Airs, vernal airs, 
Breathing the smell of field and grove, 
Attune the trembling leaves." 

SECTIONS VIII AND IX. 

MORNING AND NIGHT. 

Morning and night came next in order, in a car tastefully deeoratcd with 
evergreen garlands. Morn was represented by a young lady and four attend- 
ants, dressed in illusion robes with rose-colored mantles, with a wreath of 
flowers around their heads. Motto, " First Morn with rosy light appears." 
Night was represented by a young lady and attendants wearing a starry 
crown, and veil and flowing robe. Motto, " Then Night with starry crown." 
The appearance of this group was imposing and interesting, and evinced a 
taste in its design and execution highly creditable to the young ladies under 
whose supervision it was produced. 

SECTION X. 

SPRING . 

Spring, the first of the Seasons, was represented with particular reference 
to its most beautiful month— May. In the centre of the platform was a May 
Pole, tastefully decorated with flowers and evergreen. Upon a mossy throne 
raised at its foot, was seated a beautiful girl— the May Queen— d* 
green, a mantle of white fastened carelessly— with yellow flowers floating 
about her. By her side was [he May King, placing a flowery crown upon 
her head. His dress was of green and white, and upon his head was u 
crown. Tho group was completed by two children, one with a flowery crook 



THE PROCESSION. 25 

•\nd little basket, readily recognized as a young shepherdess, detained by a 
youth to peep into a bird's nest, Spring's constant harbinger. 

Following this platform were twelve boys dressed in green and white, with 
a banner — motto, " Welcome ! flowery huntress, Spring.'.' Other mottoes 
read, " The rosy-footed May sails blushing on" " Welcome, Spring, birth- 
day of the flowers." 

SECTION XI. 

SUMMER. 

Summer is represented by a hay-making group, consisting of five ; three of 
-whom carried rakes, the fourth a sickle, while the fifth apparently warm and 
weary, was carelessly lying in repose, regardless of the playful hint above 
him — "Make hay while the sun shines." A pleasing variety was displayed 
in their dress — one wore a pink skirt and green bodice ; another a white 
ckirt with a lavender bodice, and tbe third was in corn-colored and blue. — 
The car, canopied in blue and white, bore this motto — "Child of the sun, re- 
fulgent summer comes ;" and was followed by fourteen boys dressed in 
^•hite with flowers, carrying banners, bearing these mottoes : 

"I l>ring you orchard fruits, your garden flowers, 
l'resh as the air, and hours." 

"Summer looks out! how ^reen and gay 

I- earth, I [lowers; 

'Tis natu liday, 

And these her white-winged hours." 

section xn. 
AUTUMN. 

This group was represented by three goddesses, appropriate to the season, 
drawn in an elegant car, richly ornamented. Pomona, the goddess of fruit, 
iiore a cornucopia of graceful and elegant design, and her dress was decorated 
rvith clusters of grapes and other fruits. At her feet lay another cornucopia, 
as elegant, though much larger than that she bore in her arms. Ceres, the 
presiding deity of the harvest, bore in one hand the ripened grain, and in the 
-other the sickle, a symbol of her vocation. Her banner was bordered with 
leaves, and exhibited her name. Diana appeared in her hunting dress. 
6earing on her brow the crescent harvest moon. Motto : 

i _'<> Ideas of the chase, 
i rain, 
Pomona, laden with her fruit, 
Makes brilliant autumn reign." 

SECTION XIII. 

WIN IE K- 

This was figured by the old and new years — the former as an old man, 

dressed in a long furred robe, a hood drawn over the head, partly concealing 

the long white beard that descended to the waist. He stood leaning upon an 

urn that contained the ashes of the past seasons ; and was about handing the 



26 THE NEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION. 

records of the past to the New Tear, who full of life and hope stood ready 
to receive it. His dress was of white and silver, a crown was upon his head ; 
and nothing was seen hut snow and ice, varied by the red winter berries 
The mottoes upon the canopy were — "Throned in his palace of cerulean ice, 
here winter holds his court." On the hanner were, "The fields put on tlicir 
wintry robes of pleasant white." 'Tale concluding winter comes at last and 
shuts the scene." The whole representation was true to winter, and 
heautifully done. 

nos xiv. 
OLD WOMAN IX THE SHOE. 
This unique group, illustrative of the well remembered melody, by Mother 
Goose, was drawn in a car made in the shape of a shoe. The 'Old Woman' 
sat in her chair of state, with a 'bowl of soup' in her hand, feeding her 
children, some six or eight little bipeds, who regardless of the absence of 
bread, eagerly devoured the unsavory liquid. Tlie car was followed by a 
group of twelve children in straw hats and high 'tires,' apparently well fed, 
and Bumptuously provided with dainties, presenting a strong contrast to the 
half starved progeny of the ' lid Woman. This idea, so diverting, was well 
presented, and formed the most amusing feature of the procession. 



THIRD DIVISION. 

Fire Department. 

These guardians of life and property from the dangers of 
fire, with their invited guests, and an abundance of sweet and 
stirring music, were out with full ranks, and presented a fine 
appearance. Never were better looking men banded together ; 
and seldom better drilled corps. They marched with the pre- 
cision of soldiers, and evinced gni>d discipline, that was highly 
complimentary to the Chief Engineer, MosES M. Ross, Esq., 
under whom they were out for the first time — and his ase 
assistants. We doubt whether any citj in the Commonwealth 
could have presented a superior department. We name the 
companies in their order. 

M. M. "Ross, Chief Engineer. 
Aids— J. B. Pritchard, .T. P. McQuillen. 
DELUGK, No. 1. 

I inform consisted of red jackets trimmed with blue, ornamented fire 
caps, black pants with buff stripe. Engine trimmed with an octagon dome 



THE PROCESSION. 27 

covered with evergreen and flowers, surmounted by a large eagle. This 
company was accompanied by the Newburyport Brass Band, 16 pieces, led 
by Mr John Knight, who took our citizens by surprise by the excellent man- 
ner in which they performed their music — not unfavorably comparing with 
any band in the procession. 

GEN. WASHINGTON, No. 3, of Medford, 
Invited guests of No 1 — with Medford Brass Band. This company brought 
their machine with them, which was very handsomely trimmed. Their uni- 
form was red jackets, black caps trimmed with gold lace, and black pants 
with leather bottoms. This company are a fine looking set of men, mostly 
ship carpenters, and endured the excessive heat, as well as all the firemen, 
like martyrs. 

MECHANIC, No. 2. 
Uniform very neat — blue jackets trimmed with red, and two stars on 
the collars ; cloth cap — a very pretty pattern — red quarters, black top, gold 
band — " Mechanic," in silver metal letters in front, encircling a figure " 2" 
— black pants, red stripe. Engine trimmed with flowers, evergreen, spruce 
trees and flags. This is the first time this company has paraded for many 
years, but in their new and very handsome uniform, they made a grand dis- 
play. They turned out as large, if not the largest number of any company, 
and their appearance was quite complimentary to their officers. They were 
accompanied with excellent music from the Navy Yard, at Portsmouth, N. H. 

' PROTECTOR, No. 3. 

Uniform — red coats trimmed with buff and green ; white pants 
with patent leather bottoms ; green belts, with " Protector " in silver 
letters ; caps — red tops, quarters of green, red band trimmed with silver lace, 
metals letters in front in shape of a diamond, in the centre of which is figure 
3. Engine trimmed very handsomely with flowers, evergreen and flags. — 
This company marched with precision and showed they had been well drilled. 

THE TIGER, No. 1, of Haverhill. 
The guests of No. 3, were accompanied by the Union Brass Band of the 
same place. Their uniform was blue coats trimmed with red and white ; 
black pants red stripe ; red belts on which was ".No. 1, Haverhill," in gold 
letters: red caps with the word " Tiger " in silver letters in front. They 
brought their engine with them — one of .letters' ''double deckers," which 
plays fonr streams, has two suctions, and in 10 1-2 inch cylinder. It is a 
most powerful machine, and was trimmed in magnificent style. The com- 
pany and machine are an honor to the place from which they come. In the 
afternoon they had a trial of its power, which was quite satisfactory. Though 
not throwing water to a greater height than either Lesley's or Hunneman's 
tabs, yet it is in the quantity of water which it throws that it excels. 



28 TDK NEWBtRYPORT CELEBRATION. 

EAGLE, No. 5. 

Uniform consisted of white coats trimmed with blue; black pants witii 

white stri azed cap with white band, figure 5 in front. Engine 

prettily trimmed with evergreen, flowers and flags. The uniform of this. 

company, though out of the usual style, looked exceedingly well, and at- 

•i.od deal of attention'. 

TOEEENT, No. 7. 
Uniform consisted of red jackets trimmed with blue and silver lace ; 
silver star on both sides of ihe breast; blue cloth caps trimmed with red and 
silver lace, figure 7 en i: reath; black pants with silver stripe; 

patent leather licit trimmed with red, on which is inserted " Torrent " in 
white letters. This is an elegant uniform, the belt alone costing S3. Engine 
trimmed with four arches of evergreen and flowers, and an arch on the hose 
carriage, all making a fine display. 

NEPTUNE, No. 8. 
Appeared in full rank'-, with Klue coats trimmed with red and white, brown 
pants with red d belt with the gilded letters "Neptune," on 

the back, and the figure S in front ; caps, top blue glazed, and blue quarter*, 
ornamented with silver hue and red stripes, bearing ;! n.l a sta: 

on front. The banner borne by the company was a very tasteful and neatly 
i representation of the sea god, Neptune, with the company's motto 
surmounted on his fork — '• Douse Ihe Glim " — two hoys neatly dressed in sea- 
men's rig, carrying the lanyards of the same. The engine was drawn by 
two beautiful 1>.. h was trimmed in a very neat and tasteful man 

ner; on the top sat Neptune, or the water god, with long streaming 
and cap made of shells, with a tar pot in one hand, and a piece of iron hoop 
in the other, as described by seamen on board ships, on crossing the line, tc 
"nitiate all new sailors who may be on hoard. 



FOURTH D I Y I S I X 

Trades' Procession. 

The trades weri represented, but so far .. 

went, thej made a magnificent display. We noticed among 
them, particuly, those relating t<> ship-building and finishing 
— the carpenters and caulkers, the ship joiners ami Bhij 
painters. Combined they are the most numerous and impor- 



THE PROCESSION". 29 

tant of the mechanical pursuits, and from the earliest history 

of the place have been famed for superior workmanship. 

SHIPWKK .HIS. 

Elisha Storet, Chief Marshal. 

Aids — Frederick Cheever, J. P L. Westcott, Dustan Coffin, Spraguc Chase. 

The Shipwrights led the trades, numbering full three hundred — strong, 
sturdy, vigorous men — the real bone and sinew — who attracted general 
attention hy their manly appearance. They had a banner with these mottoes 
— "Honor to whom honor is due. The aged mechanics — truly they are 
God's noblemen. The works of their hands have covered every sea." Re- 
versed it read — "How worthy — full of knowledge and happi- 
ness — standeth in majestic independence, the self-ennobled mechanic." The 
carpenters followed s platform, drawn by six beautiful, finely decorated 
horses, in a line, on which was their "model ship," more than twenty feet in 
length — taken one inch to the foot of a clipper, sharper than was ever bnilt 
on the river, and as much so as any one that ever spread canvas on the 
seas: from the plan of a ship 2.12 feet long on deck, 46 feet beam, and 23 
feet deep. She was designed by Mr. Townsend, of the firm of Currier & 
Townsend, who ranks among the first draftsmen of the country, and was 
built under his direction. She was pronounced on all hands, a perfect spec- 
imen of naval architecture ; and as the hull was finished upon the ways, 
ready to launch, she represented all the various kinds of mechanical work in 
ship building, showing the taste and skill of the different artizans, and would 
maintain the character they have always supported in this branch of industry. 
She was painted by John Burrill & Co., to light water, copper colored, and 
above entirely black, with the exception of a gilded streak; and on deck' 
light. The iron work — chains, &c., were by Mr. Abner Kenniston, and the 
anchors by Mr. Henry T. Moody. She had a carved prow — an eagle's 
head — gilded, on each side of which was her name — Independence — and 
upon her rounded stern a beautiful spread eagle, holding in his talons a scroll, 
inscribed — "The Declaration of Independence — 1770." The carving was 
done — most admirably too — by Mr. Joseph Wilson & Son. The windlass, 
capstan and wheel were by Mr. Michael l'earson, turner and wheel-maker, 
and the joiners' work by the Messrs Choate. Over her floated a pennant 
and three flags — a burgee, an ensign, and a union-jack, which were contri- 
buted by the patriotic ladies of Belleville. The flags and all she wore bore a 
just proportion, so that there was a perfectness in the view, as much so as in 
looking upon a bilge ship. ( In the platform around her, were numerous 
models, in use for the last two hundred years, in striking contrast with her- 
self, and showing the progress of the art since the first vessels were built on 
the Merrimack. 

In the procession the oldest carpenters rode in a vehicle in the form of a 
boat, called the '-Bonny Boat ;" and from their advanced age, grey hairs, 
and many evidences of having reached or passed the last of their labors, were 



30 THE NEWBUItYFOKT CELEBKATIOX. 

in striking contrast with the athletic men around them. Their opinions am.' 
experience were on the banners they presented : "In ourselves ambition is 
dead, but it hath a resurrection in our children." By culture man may d< 
anything short of a miracle." "We only arrange and combine the ancient 
elements of all things." 'To improve and expand is our aim, but nothing 
of the past has been forgotten." ''Invention i- activity of mind." "There 
is a moral magnitude li il of example." 

SHIP JOINERS. 
The Ship Joiners were from the workshop of Messrs T. & E. Choate. 
The principal feature of this division, was the exhibition of a beautiful cabin 
in miniature form, 20 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 7 feet high, revere 
out so as to show more fully thi hie frame work. 

The cabin was placed on a body wagon, neatly trimmed and decorated, and 
drawn by a splendid span of horses. The a£t end represented a state room 
finished, berths, ras used for a joiners' shop, the 

men finishing their parts of the work, tools hanging around, &c. This was 
arranged expressly for the occasion, and throughout evinced taste and genius 

editable to the 
parties, and was another proof of that genius which has placed the Merrimack 
ship joiners in the front rank of nautical architects and skillful um 
The mottoes upon the sides of th I -industry is life." No pains, 

no gains." "Hope is a workman's dream." "Play not wit 
Banner in the shape of a topsail — motl —Excelsior." 

PAINTERS. 
The e: rs John Bnrrill 

upon a platform al feet long by 6 1-2 wide, drawn by a span of hot 

sard part was a ship's billet head ; on the front end, specit 
graining for ships' cabins, &c, — and above a fa .i Burrill,' upon 

I 
pecimens of ornamental work, 
'John Bun ill & Co., 

painting, 9 !'• el by 6 l 2, gill frame, sin. Id in the cent! I below, 

in a scroll ind the Constitution — with these 

we arc - 

The interior was dri i 

I rst, a man at work on burnish 
ing— another m -another maki 

and a clerk writing at s 

of work in this department. Third, 
' ourth, men gr 
I 
tools usually kepi in a pi mem. 



THE TKOCESSION. . 31 

THE EMEBY BOAT. 
After the painters followed a beautiful little boat, schooner ringed, belonging 
to Mr. John Emery, of Georgetown. She was covered with Hags and other 
decorations, and had as mottoes, on one side, "Welcome, Sons of Newbury- 
port ;" and on the othrr. "Washington's fame never to be forgot." She was 
manned by three lads in navy dress 

THE OLD STAGE. 
As the procession was passing the Turnpike, one of the stages, formerly 
in the employ of the old ■<■ Company, drove up, the driver, Mr. 

Edmund Knight, one of the oldest drivers, formerly in the employ of that 
company, blowing the horn, &c. Upon the top was the bagga. 
marked Hon. George Lunt, D. X. Haskell, Esq., and the whole looked like 
the limes when the Wolfe Tavern was in place of the depot. 



FIFTH DIVISION. 

The oppressiveness of the heat created quite a paucity of numbers in the 
fifth division, which, as will be observed by the programme, was to b 

• various Benevolent Associations of this and other places. Had th( 
i i; more favorabli i - would have turned ou in large num- 

Qui 'cmonstration was made by the Masons at a meeting held the 

evening before, and somewhat extensive arrangements were made for a dis- 
play in the procession, by most of the societies mentioned in the programme, 
but the oppressive state of the atmosphere, the mercury standing near 100°, 
during the time consumed in the march, that it was thought inexpedient to 
join the procession. 



SIXTH DIVISION. 

The sixth division, to be composed of the a 

trance, This was to be accounted for in the fact thai every horse 
that could he procured, was in active service where the labor was not only 
more profitable to its owner, but to the people generally. 



Owing to the tardiness of the trains, the procession did not move till nearly 
11 o'clock. It ii ' I to Wa- 

Oi 
- to State, up State to High, up Hi ;h to Kent, eoun 
march down Hich to Market, down Marl , ngton, through 



32 . THE NEWBrRYPORT CELEBRATION. 

Washington to Green, down Green to Pleasant, through Pleasant to the 
Church. 

Owing to the extreme heat of the day a short distance of the route was 

cut off. The procession was the largest ever formed in Newburyport, and 

I an imposing appearance. The streets through the whole route 

were lined with people, and every window commanding a view was filled 

with faces. 



CHILDREN'S COLLATION. 

After the procession was over, the children engaged in it, were regaled 
with a line collation in the City Hall, which was finely decorated for that 
The windows were hung with festoons of bunting, while from the 
centre of the ceiling, streamers were carried to all parts of the hall. The 
back of the rostrum was handsomely trimmed with American flags, and a 
line full length portrait of Washington, furnished for the occasion by the 
Quascacunquen Lodge of Odd Fellows. At the opposite end of the hall was 
three arches of evergreen, the centre one bearing a pair of clasped hands, and 
the inscription — 

" 'Tis the same cordial, hearty grasp 
-ago." 

The children enjoyed themselves highly, as may well be supposed, after 
the loug and dusty march. 



Street Decorations. 

We Hi- rely give those decorations along the route of the 
procession, though many other residences than those men- 
tioned win- ornamented. We give in the order. 

MARKET STREET. 
In front of the residence of Nathaniel Horton, Esq., three arches trimmed 
race; upon one, '1645 — 1764;' the centre arch. 'We 
forget not the Absent ;' the nexl ' — the whole surmounted with 

American flags. 
Resident ' K. Hudson, Esq., an arch over gateway composed of 

n, motto, 'Come again soon.' 

IIIi. II STREl I 
From 1). W. Bayley's house was stretched a line from which hung the 

American ensign. ' 

From tin- Ironl of II. Bartli :: is bang Bags and itrean 

At the head of Toppan's hue, the house of D. T. Colman was on: 

with flora] arches and Bags in front bearing the motto. 'Union,' surmounted 



BTBEET DECORATIONS. 33 

by two hands clasped — festoons were hung from the flag by floral wreaths. 
with motto, 'Newburyport,' 'Newbury.' 

In front of the block at the head of Market street, occupied by the Messrs 
Creasey, Lander and Noyes,— flags and banners stretching across the street — 
a representation of 'Ye old Morse house, 1645,' and and a spread eagle 
bearing a shield, upon which appeared '177G,' and in his beak a streamer, 
upon which was 'Success to Xewburyport.' 

Over the gateway at the residence of Mr H. T. Crofoot, an arch decorated 
with evergreen and flowers, with the motto in golden letters, 'Home Again !' 
under which was suspended an elegant wreath. 

At the house of Rev. Mr. Vermilye, an arch over the gateway, with the 
motto, 'Let Brotherly Love continue.' 

The house of Mayor Davenport was decorated by arches and the American 
flag, with the motto, 'Welcome, Returned Sons.' 

At the residence of Messrs Osgood and Brockway an arch was thrown over 
the gateway, upon which was the motto, 'With joy wc greet thee-' 
: 

The house of Rufus Smith was elegantly decorated with arches of ever- 
green and flowers, and the entire front and side of the walk hung with fes- 
toons trimmed with American (lags and evergreen, mottoes — 'All hail 
Columbia, Washington, Lafayette, Carver, Hancock, Winthrop, Ja\ 
— Welcome home sons and daughters — Free speceh — free press — religious 
liberty guided by truth will perpetuate our national prosperity,' A large gilt 
Bible was hung under the word truth. 

John G. Tilton's house was decorated by an arch in front composed of ever- 
green, with the motto, " Fond memory brings the light of other days around 
us." 

John I'orter — Portico surmounted with a large carved eagle, the pillars 
festooned with variegated colors of cambric entwined with wreaths of flowers, 
and a floral arch thrown in front. Motto, 'The T'nion, it must be pres 

From the Globe Mill to the residence of Capt. Symonswas aline of Amer- 
ican and British flags— Porch of house festooned. 
ORANGE ■- n:i.! I 

Residence of J. R. Ireland — Floral arch surmounted with motto, 'We 
greet you.' 

Col. Amos Tappan's residence was beautifully arranged — streamers were 
hung in front bearing the word •Welcome,' and ornamented with festoons. 
The Porch was wreathed with flowers and bore the mottoes, 'Welcome the 
present — remember the absent.' 'Home again, home again, we joy to greet 
thee.' A highly ornamented arch was thrown over the sidewalk upon Fair 
street, and in letters of white in the evergreen appeared 'Welcome home," 
beneath which was the taotto 'Karly friends again united.' 
FAIR STREET. 

Residence of Mr Johnson — American flag bearing the motto, V 
the day and greet our friends from far.' 



S4 THE NEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION. 

K STREET. 
In front of Mr S. T. Payson's residence was hung the American flag, 
motto, '.Man shall not live by bread alone.' 

STATE Si I. 

Three arches were thrown over the street at equal distances, the pillars of 
which were trimmed with spruce, and the mottoes worked in evergreen. 
The mottoes were — 

1st. " The spirit of '76 — May it ever inspire us." 

se — " To love onus country is to love one's home." 

'2 1. "A KL-union To-day and the Union Forever. ' 

Reverse — "A Glorious Day in cur ( it;, 's History." 

yd. " We are proud of our Sons and Daughters.'' 

I; \< rse. " W elcome to Oold Newberry." 

The store of Mr Tilton presented the motto, 'Welcome home, Boston 
losed by a wreath of flowers. 

The Club Room over Mr Jaques' store was decorated with a shield let- 
tered 'Union,' surmounted by the cap of liberty, and the American flag and 
jack hung from the centre in festoons. 

The St. Charles was appropriately dressed with evergreens, &c. 

The shop of T. II. i A. W. Lou!, Market Square, was most magnificently 
dressed, The lower part was decorated with fir trees, and from the balus- 
trade over the door was thrown an evergreen arch, in the centre of which, 
lificent tloral wreath, was a plaster bust of Washington in a 
military a 

From the front of M. 11. Sargent's store was hung the American flag. 

BROWN'S SQUARE. 

Th- American flag floated in the breeze in front of the City Hall. 

The residence ol Most 9 Sweetser, in the S [uare, presented a fine appear- 
ance. An arch of variegated flowers was erected npon the front, and richly 
ornamented with flags. A laru r e BtnfiR d eagle with outstretched wings, stand- 
in the union and shield, helding in his talons the motto, 'Liberty and 
Equality,' the whole resting upon a base with the motto, 'Our march is 
onward.' At the base of the column was a -evenly four gun-ship, 
with the flags of all nat 

PLEASAM STR1 

The house of Engine Co. was wreathed and bong with flowers and 

! I cen. 
Mr Sumner'-, store was highly decorated with evergreen — motto. Industry 
the main cause of success.' A] I on and Flanders, 

was ornamented with flags, surmounting a motto, 'There is no 
place like home.' 

Mr i - 1. 



CHURCH EXERCISES. 35 

The Exercises at the Church 

Were well performed and of a lii^rl; order, The music which filled the house 
with strains now sweet and melodious — now hold and startling, that moved 
all hearts — that excited the best and noblest feelings of our natures, was 
performed by a select choir of fifty musicians of the highest musical talent of 
the city, under the direction of M. I). Randall, Esq., whose long experience 
in this department places him at the bead of the catalogue of teachers in his 
profession. The Voluntary on the organ by Mr. R. P. Morss, of this city, 
was played in the most exquisite manner. Ho commenced with the national 
song, "Hail Columbia," with the full organ, followed by the full strain of 
"Should Old Acquaintance be Forgot," and closed withj "Home, Sweet 
Home," upon the swell organ, so soft and sweet that the almost breathless 
silence of the audience became necessary to hear it. The finale chorus of 
the Messiah, by Handel, was sung with wonderful effect ; its lofty and sub- 
lime strains, sustained by so many flexible, yet full voices, were truly 
inspiring, particularly in the passage, "King of Kings and Lord of Lords." 
The other chorus, from Mozart's 12th Mass, "Praise the Lord the nations 
all," was no lss grand in its performance than the one alluded to above. 
The "Song of Welcome," by Hon. George Lunt, is one of his best 'produc- 
tions, and will speak for itselt in thrilling tones. The music for this hymn 
was composed by M. D. Randall, and was listened to with delight, and is 
another of the many gems of his compositions. The patriotic Ode, by Jacob 
Haskell, Esq., is replete with meaning, and its performance by the choir to 
the old tune of "The Star Spangled Banner," seemed to carry the minds of 
the audience back to days long since passed, when its strains were as familiar 
to all as household words. The tenor solo in this piece was sung by Mr. 
George W. Hale, who possesses in the fullest extent all the elements which 
make a public singer. The organ accompaniments to the choir were per- 
formed by Mr. J. W. Cheney, in a style far surpassing any of his former 
efforts. His n asterly touch upon this grand and powerful instrument in the 
sublime strains of Handel and Mozart, were truly inspiring. 

Following the Reading from the Scriptures, by the Rev. Thomas M. 
Clark, of Hartford, Conn., and a fervent, eloquent prayer by Rev. D. M. 
Reed, came the following 

SONG O F W ELCOME. 

BY GEOBGE I.I/NT. 

Welcome! a thousand times welcome home ! 
Joy to their paths, — the wanderers come ; 
For childhood's scenes they have pined so long, 
Welcome them back with the festal song! 

In busy cities, when crowds were gone, 
Through solemn depths of the forest lone, 
By distant plains, and where Ocean rolls, 
Homeward dreams have come over their souls. 



16 THE NEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION. 






They come, — they gather to greet once more 
hired form, with its heart's full store, 
Tin i peaking eye, 

Beloved so well in the years goi.e by. 

Oh, some will bead. with ready feet, 
W here love sits smiling and home is sweet, — 
And others have pa-sed through stormy waves, 
Only to look on their fathers' graves. 

i -"id run back, 
From Life's wild sea, over childhood's track, 
And own, for the dearest joy of earth, 
A mi father's ecarth. 

Welcome them,— welcome ! their hearts are true, 

e r souls are drops of youth's first dew; 
Joy, oh,joy! let the wanderers come, — 
Welcome-! a thousand times welcome home! 

The Declaration of Independence was well recited by Me. Uieam B. 
Haskell. After that came the following patriotic Ode by Mr. Jacoii 
Haskell. 

ODE . 

i id Banner." 
All hail to the past — to the dark trying hour 

Which tr!l o|": -. their glory; 

How nobly they sir i Id's haughty power, 

Surp - rittcn in story. 

In the ■ night, 

. i e of freedom and right; 
For tl irtues that ever impart 

Bourn 1! a to the heart. 

! list we again to the deep thrilling tone 

That so loudly was uttered, ere liberty's dawning 
Revealed to the world that, unaided, alone, 

They • and fawning 

Should he things of the past — that the 
Should ring o'er the vale — and our Bag crown the mast; 
For theirs were tin- virtues that ever impart 
Boundless hope to the soul, and resoh e t" the heart. 

0! list we again t" 

As ha gloriously lays of our trial, 

"(iivi- u< freedom or d om choice, 

But for life without freedom n ■ fi n ■ back denial. 
Then bright deed followed .1 igton'a lean, 

Until from the tyrant our country was freed; 
For thoirs were the virtues thai ever impart 
Boundless hope to the soul, and resolve to the heart. 



THE ORATION. 37 

Tin Fathers are gone, but their memories -till 

\re lingering an nnd as like sunlight I 
Imparting the firm and the re lute will; 

To sacredly cherish the blessings they've given. 
Then let le the wrong, 

Till freedom shall gather the world in her throng; 
v.i 1 1 ' may the blessings around us impart 

-.1 the soul, an I heart. 

The ovation by Rev. George D. Wildes, was elegantly 
delivered, and in the matter of the address and the manner of 
its delivery, was worthy of one of Newburj port's most prom- 
ising sons. But no circumstance excited more attention than 
the appearance of the venerable Dr. Dana, now more than four- 
score years old, to pronounce the Benediction. The eyes of 
hundreds who themselves had grown gray ami old since last 
they listened to him, were fixed upon his thin form, and placid, 
intelligent countenance ; and hundreds hung upon his words, 
probably to be heard no more by most of them this side the 
grave, who felt they were amply repaid for all the trouble and 
cost of their visit, in the reception of his solemn blessing. 

ORATION. 

There is one word in our language, which of all others, best demonstrates 
what may be termed the intrinsic p u>er of words. By this I mean, power, 
irrelative of association of ideas or connection of thought ; a something almost 
electric, which charges as it were the simple combination of letters, and at 
-he utterance, causes the whole range of the emotional susceptibilities to thrill 
and ln-ave with unwonted activity. I know not whether it finds its kindred 
in this intrinsic element of power, in the great family of languages : the idea 
which it represents, is indeed a universal one; but this I know, that wherever 
the great language of sturdy thought, of lofty sentiment and of patriotic 
action is spoken ; to whomsoever England has bequeathed the rich inherit- 
ance of her religion, her liberty, her literature and her genius, there, and to 
these, the word can never fail to he an household and a blessed word. Homt '■ 
Home) whose soul is not stirred again at its sound; whose heart does not 
love the enchantment of its sjiell ; whose whole being docs not throb the 
more joyously, under the sweet constraint of its charm ' Who of us, now 
gathered again amid its endearments and associations, has not experienced, 
always* and everywhere, its cheering counseling and consoling influence ' 

4 



38 THE NEWBUB7P0BT CELEBRATION. 

Our Home ! we can never forget thee ! The hearth-stone and its welcomes, 
the grave and its memories, the living and the loved, the loved and the 
departed alike forhid it : the household and the silent land all are to-day 
voiceful, in bidding thee but the more surely to our embraces and our love. 

We are gathered at home, and in this sacred temple, to-day, under circum- 
stances at once interesting and novel. Under ordinary aspects, the ri 
of this birth-day of Freedom is the occasion of high and pure emotion. Tin- 
event which it commemorates, gave energy to the young life of Liberty, and 
rallied the strong will, and the earnest desire, to the furtherance of noble and 
holy purpose. It was an event, whose memory, by each recurring anniversary, 
has become interwoven into the very fibre of association, and thus has knit 
together our political and domestic attachments in compact and beautiful 
order. There are other occasions indeed, which in a d 
concentrate our political and local affinities. The ancient fasting time of 
the Puritan; the thrice welcome Thanksgiving season, both these are 
pregnant with singular power — to link the memories of the early state and 
the early home. No other anniversary, however, so readily identifies the 
National with the domestic associations , none so surely unite ! 
•i < al wedlock the love of.country and of home, as the holiday of Liberty. 
Who of us, lu's not to-day experienced something of the truth of this 
i Who of us, as the well remembered bells have pealed their 
welcomes, and the jubilee cannon has rolled its peaceful thunder over the 
graves of our lathers' rest, who of us has not recognized the early t 1 
the jubilant voice of oar youthful days, as the undefined germ of what we 
now know to he the cnj. i .! And I hold it as an 

axiom, that onality is twin-born with the 

relation. Need I illustrate the position- France, with the 
relation an undefined, or at least wrongly estimated one, has ever 
needed the might of individual genius, or the glory of individual exploit to 
rouse her children to high enterprise. England on the contrary, whose very 
name "18 a word victorious,' England, in whose stalwart Saxon soul we 
11 y, as that which enabled our fathers rightly t<> discriminate and 

defend thi I stands, 

tood and conquered becat e the birth-plac of her honor and 
manline I be one clement rather 

than another, which gives enduram to hei ei hes from 

'. of war, it is that which symbolized by the G 
ith( r earth, has become a sam I 

1 : ; England's hon And it is thi-, which 

S 1 .mi from his fatherland, ha 
carts to us her chili'. ■ 

. the pilgrim I I and invigorated amid the Btorms ol 

lory amid the fires of the Revolution. In 
our later contests it nerved the arms of our countrymen to resist aggression 
In our domestic politics it has ever been the secret of that trui 



THE ORATION. 89 

which controls a licentious radicalism with the right arm of constitutional 
restraint, and points the eye of an honest, yet mistaken policy, to the ri^lit , 
while it iuvokes the blessing of freedom and equality for universal man. — 
Upon the same base, then, let the national and domestic altar stand, — 

" Long, long in hut and hall, 

May hearts of nati ;■ ■ il be found, 

To guard each hallowed wall; 

And green forever be the graves, 

And bright the flowery soil. 

Where irit loves 

Its counta 
I have thus spoken, my friends, for two reasons. First, because the two 
ideas which I have named, are peculiarly identilied with our gathering to-day; 
and secondly, because the patriotic element is strikingly manifest in the early 
history of our home. I say again our home ; for whatever our preset 
relations, in whatsoever climes wc may dwell, here around the hearth-stones oi 
our youth, and the graves of the departed, must forever be the true home of 
our hearts. On this day then, consecrated to the united memories of 
dom's birth-time an4 our own birth place, it cannot he an unpleosing task i! 
we review, somewhat at length, some of the causes which have rendered both 
dear to our best affections. Identified as was our town with the earliest 
manifestations of the revolutionary principle, I shall be pardoned, if in 
reviewing some perhaps familiar aspects of our town history, I endeavor to 
indicate the lineaments of that resolute spirit which fired the souls of our 
fathers, and still marks the character and enterprise of the sons. 

It is Burke, I believe, who says that, " it may be doubted whether the 
history of mankind is yet complete enough to furnish grounds for a sure 
theory on the causes which necessarily affect the fortunes of a people. I air. 
far, "says he, "from denying the operation of such causes, but they are 
infinitely uncertain, and much more obscure, and much more difficult to 
trace, than the foreign causes that tend to raise, to depress, and sometimes, 
to overwhelm a community. It is often impossible to find any proportion 
between the apparent force of any moral causes we may assign, and their 
known operation. We are therefore obliged to deliver up that operation to 
mere chance, or more piously, perhaps, more rationally to the occasional 
interposition and irresistible hand of the Great Disposer." In the spirit of 
this latter proposition, and quite in accordance with the general laws of 
l'rovidcnce, the distinguished Archdeacon Hare remarks, that, "if any 
persons are to he selected by preference for the peopling of a new country, 
they ought rather to be the most temperate, the most energetic, the most 
prudent and the most virtuous in the whole nation : for their task is the most 
arduous, requiring wisdom to put forth all her strength, and all her craft for 
its worthy execution. Their responsibility is the most weighty, seeing that 
upon them, the character of a whole people will depend for ages." A senti 
ment so just, may, at first sight, seem inapplicable to the history and - 



40 THE NEWBUBTPORT CELEBRATION. 

leristi of a limited locality, and vet I cannot but think that no troth is 
rasceptible of clearer proof, than that the true secret of our nation's progress, 

to ' found in its truest proportions in our New England town histories. — 
Indeed, is it not true, that that mighty power which reformed and n 

lish Constitution in the times of the Commonwealth, drew its 
and healthiest life from the limited localities of the English towns? 
It may be said, that an indiscm. proportionate taxation laid its 
hand heaviest upon these minor parts of the body politic ; but in the face of 
overwhelming influences from the great centres of political action, resistance on 
the part of village and hamlet, argues a hitter and higher life, a power of ri^ht 
«ptioD inversely proportionate sometimes, to the obscurity of its sources. 

in these views I am happy to be sustained by an authority, certainly not 
to be disputed here amid the scenes of his early distinction. Says- the 
distinguished Attorney-General of the United States, in the preface to - hie 
well condensed history of Newhuryport, "in many countries, and no where 
more remarkably than here, the history of towns is a very important part in 
the history of the nation ;" andinanoil, , lie remarks that "towns 

are nothing but the elements of nations, and whatever affects tie latter 
affects the former in the same degree." Pursuing the idea then, I remark, 
that the conditions incident to the proper peopling of a new country, seem 
to have been most fully met in the character of the settlers of our New 
England towns ; pardon me if I say, that in an eminent degree do thi 
to have marked the founders of the ancient town of Newbury. I have read' 
the humble records of their corporate lite from the first settlement in 1035 to 
hut little purpose, if the impression of their temperance, their prudence, their 
virtue and energy, has not been a most clear and decided one. Originally 
of the class in the main, at home termed "landed proprietors," I 1 I 
that other condition essential to the permanent condition of a state ; "for the 
itrength Of a state, humanly speaking, consists not in its population, or 
wealth, or knowledge, or in any other such heartless and merely scientific 
elements, but in the number of its landed proprietors." "All ancienl 
legislators, says Xicbuhr when speaking of Nuina and above all 
rested tin- result of their ordinances lor virtue, civil order and good manners, 
mg lauded property, or at least the hereditaj i land to 

the greatest possible number of citizens." it is reasonable' to presume then, 
chat habits acquired in the ease and disposition of property in England, and 
applied to the allotments made to t lettl stents exhibited their 

influence in a marked degree in a settlement so distin{ number 

of such proprietors as that of Newbury. In reviewing the records of tin 
town, it is quite easy to see how soon the idea nud righi> of property were 
devi loped. Passing along those records until the period ol the incorporation 
of Newhuryport, the operation of tin. fact ol property upon every towi 
ordinance for the public good is constantly evid ' Uy is it manifest 

in its relation to that spirit of enterprise which has always eminently 
characterized the inhabitants of both t. 



THE ORATION. 41 

It must not be forgotten, however, that there were elements of piety and 
culture by which the fathers of our town were largely distinguished. In 
every estimate of the causes of the prosperity of New England, the argument 
from proprietorship acquires overwhelming force when viewed in the light 
of that practical piety and consequent mental discrimination, which as it was 
the ehiefest glory of our fathers, will hereafter prove their crown. In these 
later days we are quite too much in the habit of identifying religion only 
with the sentiments and tastes. We practically dissociate it from its political 
and social relations ; we isolate its influences from those connections, in 
which in the wisdom of God it was intended to exert some of its highest 
and holiest benefactions. But we much mistake the secret of that energy of 
will and purpose, that activity in deed, that early respectability which we are 
proud to commemorate it) cur local history. I say we much mistake the 
secret power of these, if after all, they were not the product of the Puritan 
piety. When Macaulay depicts the grand lineaments of the Puritan in the 
political strifes of the seventeenth century, he draws the features of that same 
spirit as the vital ingredient of gaccess in every other relation. When in 
burning and glowing rhetoric be says of them, that "they were men whose 
minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of 
superior beings and eternal interests," lie no more surely touches the key- 
note of their triumph over despotism at home, than he traces out the peculiar 
source of the success of like minds in more peaceful walks. That same eve 
which could look calmly upon the stormy battle, because it had first looked 
upward to God ; that same heart which quailed not amid the hurricane of the 
charge, because it was at peace with its Maker, these were the same, which 
in civil and social aspect-, were distinguished for a precision of view, a cool- 
ness of judgment, and an inmutability of purpose " which some have thought 
inconsistent with religion, but which were in fact the necessary effects of it." 
And although we may not always be able to connect our own ancestry 
directly with the Puritan of the commonwealth, yet there is a marvellous 
likeness stamped upon their character ami habits. There is the same 
acknowledgement of God in the ascription of every event to His will; there 
is the same subjection of every impulse of mind and heart, to the one over- 
powering sentiment of God, and duty to him ; there is the same idea of a 
practical, present, ever-judging God as the grand arbiter of every act, and the 
truest bond of every social and domestic institution. 

I combine then these characteristics of the early inhabitants of our town as 
among the chief causes, at [east, of their succeeding social and commercial 
distinction; I unhesitatingly affirm my belief, that in these combined, heav- 
enward and temporal aspects of the history of our New England towns, earh 
distinguished for stable and uniform growth, respectability and social impor- 
tance, will he found the talisman of any real prosperity or progress in any 
community, however humble and limited its locality. When then I read the 
homely records of Newbury, (and it is to these that we must resort in any 

r 



42 * THE NEWBUBYPORT CELEBRATION". 

analysis of the prosperity and enterprise of our own town) when I mark xc 
intervals, the quick perception of local 1 useful 

pursuits ; when I see the forest bending its hurthen to the sturdy stroke of 

and the broad stream along whose hanks our boyh I n 

lifting upon its breast the graceful results of his handiwork : when shortly I 
read that the skill of the early mechanic, gave a name and a fame to the 
naval architecture of those peri our birth-place, even with the 

interests of the mother-limd by these tokens of its industry ; when I find the 
ocean made tributary to its enterprise, and that important fishing ii 
developing its energies, which in later till anol jed of national 

I dd the diligent cultivation of the soil, making 
i; to rival from tl even the rural homes of England, I 

- all these as the legitimate reso 1 with 

its genuine offspring, honest and earn" 
ot lli^ band, 

In entering thus far upon the causes of that importance which has already 
attached to the social and commercial aspects of the place of our nativity, I 
have passed behind the record of its own separate municipal existei 
have dor. i i believe that in any estimate of social as of individual 

character, the influence of maternity, so to speak, must always largely enter. 
Wc who Irandmother, "I tald 

y," in honoring her daft'hter and evtr mother. As those of us of 
have to-day either embraced our mothers, or, alas I 
at their graves, how has the memory fastened upon one in that charmed 
circle of home, whose departure has reminded us 

■ recollection identified one venerable form, and one gentle and loving 
countenance, to whose presence and counsels in our youth, we must ascribe 
quite as much ;.s to any other, whatever of pious and manly stature we have 
attained A godly grandmother! the choicest gifts of 

May we go hi ici othes rife of life, inspin oory, and 

invigorated in heart, by the tearful, yel of those holy 

ones in glory ! 

When I brief review of the history of our own town, I must 

turn again to Newbury for the forma- in some degree, of that 

culture and refinement which early distinguished the inhabitants of our own 
town. The Act for the incorportion of Newbnryport passed in 1764, in part 
Whereas the town of Newbury is very large, and the inhab- 
it who dwell by tii' mostly 
trad parts are 
whereof man} I disputes havi 
their public affairs . In his "Pickle 
for the K I ." that erudite and classical .scholar, the 1. 
Timothy Dexter presents us with the interpretation of some of these 



THE oration. 43 

difficulties. With that felicity of idea which marked h whether 

in trade or literature, quite as much as the absence of punctuation distin- 
guishes the latti r, he eli ad Btrong, 
the farmers was 12 out of 20, thay wanted to have the te contry, 
the larned in seeport wanted to have them there, lite thay wood, in 1 
went to Jinral Oort to he sot of * * * * * * So much f 

i mad." At the expense of disturbing the gravity of 
I have introduced this extract, 1 1 the theories of 

i a germ of truth. Industry and civil 
order upon a religious I necessities. No people 

sure to attain to the highest and must discriminating eulture as a godly 
people. The education of the morals involves as a grai i 
hi I hold then to the practical 

Bible philosophy of our fathers of Newbury as one antecedent at least of 
those marked intellectual features early discoverable in the 
Newburyport; and I regard it, as before intimated, as the basis of that 
distinction in political fi and honesty in literary emini 

commercial ami social position, which land today to > 

cap-stone of the bo ial structure. The New England mind ! my fri 
you would find its source, you must look heavenward. Its ancestry i 

: the skies ; and as to-day, yon look abroad upo 
triumphs in the great names which adorn its history ; you must look upon 
them only as the reflected glories of those godly souls who now " shine as 
the stars forever and ever." 

itioned must he added that other element derived from 
the contact of the early commerce of our town with foreign eountr 
cuter;.!: , while it must be classed among the offspring of an 

d moral and intellectual progi i most powerf 

reactive energy. Upon its refluent wave, it bears back from older and more 
cultivated shores, somewhat of the spoil of its advancing tide; and I cannot 
but think that the philosophy o I reputation which our town ha9 

always sustained, in the particulai ttly to be sought 

in the extent of its early commercial connections. In such a presence as this 
it were superfluous indeed to cite proofs of this relation of commerce to 
culture. u cincture of a splendid 

commerce, and from the clasping of Christianity with the minor results of 
Eastern and ancient trade down to the era of discovery, and from that period 
to their i i ires of Japan, it is radiant with the 

closterii literature and art. It can be no , to para 

phrase the lang ■ - authority bi tore quote 1, that the sea-port of 

Newbury became the cultivated and refined municipality of Newbc 
And while all engaged ourse may not thus early have 

partaken of these in&uen tes, yel i venture to affirm, that in this theory may 
be found the solution of that intelligence, that practical skill, that large 



44 THE NEWBUEYPOET CELEBRATION. 

information anil those generous qualities of heart, which have everywhere 

and always placed the merchants and navigators of our native town in the 

I theii eral professions. 

In entire accordance with my position, then, is the gratifying fact that 

almost the first act of our town after its incorporation, was the establishment 

public schools ; and the committee report, "that as thi 
itants have now the long desired privilege of being well sen ■ 
and as they hare been heretofore liberal in the support of private ones, we 
think it proper that the public schols should be honorably supported." 
Jlonorahl ij supported ! the term itself argues that high estimate of education 
which is the legitimate effect of causes hitherto adduced. Let that record 
never he blotted out from the annals of our town. Let it go down to the 
generations to come, that the two earliest acts of its corporate life, were its 
protest agai nsl tyranny, and its pledge to the free and equal education of 
its children. Blessed be God, that to this honr i:s voice and its acts have 
been for the honorable educational support of its sons and daughters ;, and 
thrice bli that its fruits are gathered in all lands, in the 

intelligence, the usefulness, and the honor of the su> i nts of its 

libi ra] b Defections. "It i- believed bj competent judges," says Collin in his 
, '• that no town has done more for the cause of education, in 
proportion toils means, than the town of Newburyport." 

There is a brilliant page in our local history, my friends, which may 
perhaps, find its philosophical connections best developed at this point in my 

I have endeavored to show that the character of refinement and 
culture which marked our town among others of the old commercial ones of 
.-.as the product of intellectual conditions and commercial 
relations, themselves bi gotten by the God-directed energies of our ancestors 
of Newbury. So far as certain departments of mere professional life are 
concerned, it is quite easy to see, that an active and stirring seaport create- 
other necessities which attract the professional supply. The legal prol 
for instance, finds its largest exercise in the variety of contested interests 
ever incident to the business relations of such a locality. The medical, must 

Snd its largest lirld in the great centres of ) opulation and trade : 
while that other, which from thi ids has interwoven its influenct - 

into the fabric of the policy and training of New ICngland, will always bi 
identified with the character and growth of a high moral and 
But there must be something inherently peculiar in that Bociety, which finds 
its affinities in th if ability in these several departments. 

Mere business necessities fraternize mainly with business tacl ; the supply 

demand are co-relative. Professional eminence, however, is the 

of a cultivated soil, or suffers transplantation, only aa the soil to 

which it is transferred, is adapted to it- proper nutriment and growth. If 

this position then be correct, I find in it. the secret of that intellectual and 
profession four town, in which great names stand as a proud 



TUE ORATION. 45 

part of our social inheritance. It is this chemistry of causes to which I have 
referred, which lias diffused honored hand honorable name-, along the tablets 
of our local history. Sewall, Bradbury, Parsons, Jackson, the Lowells, and 
Greenleaf among our native born, of the legal profession. Adams, "the 
old man eloquent," Paine, the brilliant eulogist, Bong, the polished . 
dor at St. James's, and Thatcher, among our adopted ones, and Wilde, the 
eminent jurist, of the living, Sawyer, and Swett, " the physician, the scholar 
and the gentleman," and Noyes, the sage and shrewd, ot the same profession, 
among our native horn, and Bradstreet the honest and Belf-sacraficin . V i irg- 
nies and Preseott among the adopted, and Jackson, among the living of that 
profession. Barnard am! Cary, and Webber and Bass, Pearson and Spring 
and one known wherever a pure faith extends its influences, and win, to daj 
survives among you. .May I not name him — Dana — whose venerable form am! 
features it yet delights us to behold. 

"Doctuset expertus in religione, et arbiter elegant ianim." These are 
among our treasures, and these among the honored names in whom we to-day 
glory. And to these may I not add the names of Cross and Dalton, Stocher 
and Farris ; of Greenleaf and Titcomb, Tracy, Brown and Bartlett ; the 
Johnsons and Wheelwrights, and Cushing, Wills, Clark and Story, among 
our merchants. Perkins and Pike and Knapp — nay of many another 
departed one in various walks, whose fame in these is matter not simply of 
local, but of world-wide relations. And in our own times upon what a harvest 
of commercial, literary and professional results can we not look. Law, the 
" mother of peace and joy," has chosen hence some of the truest and most 
fearless interpreters of her own majestic utterances. Science has here trained 
up some of the noblest craftsmen amid her enegies and her adaptations. 
Poetry, amid our green slopes, and from the margin of our own silver 
Merrimack, has bid some of her own sweetest rivulets to glide; while over 
the wide earth are diffused radii of intellectual and moral light, illuminating 
and blessing others, yet finding the central source of their usefulness and 
distinction in this the home of the warm and grateful heart. Beloved 
Mother ! 

" Gratnm est cpjod patriae cives populosque dedisti." 

It is with singular and generous pride, that on this national jubilee, we, the 
sons and daughters of Newburyport, can regard her birth-time as identified 
with that of the nation. Newburyport was emphatic ally cradled amid the 
political storms which immediately preceded the Revolution. Hei 
inspirations were amid that atmosphere of self-denying and lofty resistance to 
injustice, which, charged with power under the attrition of the Stamp act ami 
its succeeding impositions, developed its lightnings in the battle fires of the 
Revolution. Her earliest words were the manly and true utterances of that 
older spirit of freedom, which found its occasion, rather than its origin, in the 
measures of the Royal Government. Her lirst writing-book, tic town record, 
hatl for its copies, Loyalty and Liberty ; but liberty at all hazards. Her first 
reading-hook was that immortal Declaration of Independence, which is 



16 THE NEWB0BYP0R1 CELEBRATION. 

sounded to-day in the ears of more than twenty-five millions of men. Her 

■ ■lie of peculiar and trying discipline, bat the scholai 
forth at this hour the mature and honored matron, and " her children rise up 
and call her blessed." It was my pleasing duty, some years since, to 
ie from the town records, the proceedings of the various meetings 
daring the revolutionary contest; and I well remember at that 
time, while as yet the causes and relations of that contest were somewhat 
undefined to my mind, the thrill and throb which accompanied the transcrip- 
tion. I believe that no nobler sentiments were ottered, and 00 
sacrifices made in any quarter of our land, during that stirring period, than 
in this our own town. From the copy of instructions gijen to Dudley Atkins, 
i ntative in 17tT> to the General Court of the Province, down through 
i of advice to the citizens of Boston, from the pen of John Dowell, 
upon the non-importation agreement ; and from this, ement to 

that act, throughout every town document hearing upon the principles and 
duties involved, there is ever to be heard the grand roll of that sub bass of 
times of Milton, and Hampden, and EnSSell, and 
Sidney, has given tone and aecompanymmt 10 the voices of the free. And 
adequately to conceive of the value of these sentiments, we must lcam 
something of the corresponding sacrifices. No strain soars so high towards 
heaven, none has such power over the heart, as that of resolution and praise 
liction. No prayer so directly enters heaven, none partakes so much 
of the heavenl;. which rises amid the depression of temporal 

circumstances ; and so with the voices and invocations of patriotism ; their 
worth are only properly estimated, when she herself is seen 
tearful, yet erect and graceful, amid the ruins of commercial and soei.d 
ty. "We have not always done justice," says Mr. Webster, "to the 
merits and Bufferings of those who sustained on their property and mi 

nee the great burthen of the war. Nobler records of patriotism exist 
no where than in those of the New England t t i re can be found 

higherpi il that was ready to pledge all, to hazard all, to 

all in the cause of the country. The voice of Otis and of Adams in Faneail 
il ill, found its full and true echo in the little councils of the interior 
and if within the Continental Congress, patriotism shot icuonsly, 

re truly, nor burn more fervently; it did not render 
the day more anxious, nor the night more sleepless, it sent up no more ardent 

i God for succor, and it put forth in no greater degree the fa 
its effort, and the energy of its whole soul and spirit in the common came, 
i 11 assemblies of the towns." 
1 cnliarly tine, :' ird of our town, I ption to 

of the Revolution, is nobly in keeping uiili the sent 

to tl boI Augusts, 1774, "Voted, That the town will 

stand by the result of the I . even if it he to the stopping of all 

-nd this too in a town whose very life hlood must he drained by the 
passage of such act. Listen to the modest journal of Lieut. Paul 



THE ORATION". 47 

"May, 1775, marched from Xewburyport with sixty men ; Ezm Ltint, com- 
mander. Jane 16, our men intrenched on a hill beyond Hunker's hill. June 
1", the Regulars landed troops, and we engaged them." Sixty men in one 
company from Xewburvport at Bunker hill! Listen to the record of 177C. 
" Voted, That if the honorable Congress should, for the safety of the United 
Colonies, declare them independent of the kingdom of Great Britain, this 
town will, with their lives and fortunes, support them in the measure." Sons 
uud daughters ! our mother anticipated the Declaration of Independence, and 
practically avowed her devotion to freedom, and that almost in the very words 
of the Declaration, on May 31st, 177G. And let me add. that as she wa9 
among the first to strike the blow which severed the Si ites from their mother 
land, so was she the very first to give the token of their re-union in a mighty 
mercantile bond, which, let us trust, may be one of prosperity and peace 
forever. The first American flag which floated in the British waters, after 
the cessation of hostilities, was displayed in the river Thames from the Comte 
dc Grasse, Capt. Nicholas Johnson, of Xewburyport. 

These records form but a meagre portion of what might be adduced as 
illustrative of the spirit and acts of our fathers in the sacred cause of liberty. 
Nobly did the town second her votes by means and nun. It contributed 
largely to all levies and Supplies. On almost every battle-field was the blood 
of her children shed ; and their bones are in the keeping of the hallowed 
monuments of their glory. In the naval contests of that period, her sons are 
distinguished among the bravest of the brave. The eagle eye of Paul Jones 
fastened upon two of her children for his chief officers. Henry and Cutting 
Lunt, (the son of one of whom we hope is here present) stood with him amid 
the battle and the wreck ; while in private enterprize, none displayed more cf 
gallant daring than the hardy seamen of Newbury and Newbnryport- Some 
estimate may be formed of the numbers from our own town, engaged in what 
was practically the navy of the Revolution, from the fact that twenty-two 
vessels and nearly one thousand men, from the towns of Newbury and Xew- 
Imryport, were lost at sea during the war. And it was not the hope of gain 
alone which prompted these enterprizes of our fathers : cay, rather it w.;s the 
determination to supply the deficiencies of the State by individual exertion, 
which made the seamen of our town the peers of the disciplined navy of 
England, in many a bloody and triumphant battle upon the deep. 

But I trespass upon your patience upon this point. Let me only add, that 
upon the interests of no town in our country did the burthen of the political 
difficulties of our national history press more heavily than upon those of 
Newbnryport. Shall I say that these were endured with resignation 3 Shall 
I not rather say that they served only to compact and mould but the more 
beautifully and firmly the bonds of patriotic devotion to the country > With 
her commerce hampered by the troubles with France in '98, a number of the 
inhabitants agreed to build and equip a twenty-gun ship, and to offer her to 
• the Government of the United States. In their letter to the Govcnim 
say, " They heartily wish their abilities extended beyond their present offer> 



48 THE NEWBURYPORT OELEBE ! I 

but the immense ravages which have been committed on their property by 

sea, and thi great prop rtion of the remnant still at risk, forbid them further 

indulgence ol their inclinations." With the cessation of these difficulties, 

came the perity. With new commercial ties binding her -to the 

prominent ports of the West Indies and Europe, the counting rooms of our 

town were the commercial Schools, as they long hud been, to which came the 

youth of the now great cities of the Northern States for their mercantile 

education. Newburyport, Portsmouth, and Salem were the ports whose 

interests and facilities gathered together the clerks of 1790, and from 

that time to 1810, from the metropolis of our own State. Those with whose 

young before me are identified in Boston and New 

York, came hither, in tlieir early days for the training which they have 

In faithfulness to those interests, in your various stations, 

rcmemberthal yon honor those elder merchants of our own town, to whose 

practical mercantile skill many of the most prominent of your emplo] 

I for tlieir success. 

Adversity followed hard, however, upon prosperity. Aggressions upon 

our mercantile inierests from the great belligerents of Europe ; the depressing 

embargo ; the fire of 1811 ; the war of 1812-U — all these contracted the mer- 

of the town. Nature too, seemed to combine her forces to 

obstructing, to di stroyii ;, the sources of her fortune and happiness. 

Through ;:ll these adverse circum tan , 1 owever, the spirit of the fathers in 

prosperity, manifested i durance, fortitude, hope — these 

were but the minor virtues which were radiant in ever] trial. 

energy still Boated on the bosom of the whelming wave, and was borne along 

Into other channels of activity and success. While j s of our 

youth, oar mother wore the weeds of mourning for her departed gli 

now rejoices in the alliances of her children with the offspring ol 

days of commercial and industrial distinction Set . graceful 

and unsurpassed under the moulding hand of a McKay, a Carrier, a Jack- 
rs, still attract the eye and command the put 
i princes of our own and other lands. Her manufacturers, inter- 
woven with the golden threads of her well improved afflictions, find " a name 
and a praise in the \ ( ry ends of the earth." Hei find in the 'hep 

as it goes down amid the storm and the wavi oo ofiheir 

own hard; aid difficulties. Bel 

disseminate and enlarge in the character and standing of her son-, the fruits 
of her early culture and literary disc' 
distinguished of whom to-day laj tlieir laurels athei 

still the 

'refill and fair is who have evi Ids am! 

inspired the be I ind deeds of her sons. May we not apply the 

.mortal bard then, to the varied fortune ed birth- 

place — 

■ 
Slum) ■: 



THE ORATION. 49 

i think thorn shames, which were indeed naught else 
of great Jove, 
■ 
The £ 

In fortune's love. J 
The n ise and fool, the artist and nnn 

But '■'. of her frown, 

I could wish that there were time to ilwe!l upon other aspects of my subject. 
The hour, and the delightful features of in, warn me that I must 

<dose. 1 have endeavored, very impel out some of the sources 

jf that marked stability of character, earnest spirit of 

, which, whether in prosperity - circum- 

to the credit and honor of onr native town. Know] 
culture combine in principles and 

iffeetions, form a boud of sta and more 

permanent than that which unites prince . Che; ive rise to 

considerations v ! > ' , I ... : .,. .. .,] features, 

ted with 

■onr own municipal I i< or They tend to the conviction on the part of any 
population, thai ... ..;.,_ heroic 

rling enterprizi ■ • been their product 

i our Revolutioi , rove. Nay, that 

that they subject and ally even • . , eir own reproduc- 

tion and more extensive influence, let the history of Oil Iter suns 

to-day demonstrate, \yiien tenty eight years ago, your former historian 
made the statement, tha' Newburyport " had never yet regained her pristine 
elevation in prosperity and wealth," he saw before him only the mother in her 
i 1 her children ui a iryand her principles, 

going forth from her gates to the battle with fo in her second 

marriage with nuMe manufacturing indn 

.' ! to the 
affection italities o' ber i. 

Sons and rt, you who hw 

from that revered mother, your chai 

tssed in all that renders 
is the legitimate result of this machinery of chan working 

has been you in her histi exigencies of ber 

depression, -he placed yon in oilier hands for tin herwell be fun 

training, remem nt you forth with the memory of a mother's 

trials in your minds, and the pril e: ample of a m 

your hearts. Wherever your lo: in lii moulding 



50 THE NEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION. 

energy which imparted the capacity for whatever distinguishes you among 
men. You may read the wisdom and blessings of their training in the names 
of the earnest minded, the generous, the relined, and the successful ones, 
standing out in glittering constellation from the face of her time-honored 
record. If many of these enjoyed the blessings of her prosperity, yours have 
seen the uses and fruits of her adversity. He of whom Burke remarks, that 
" he possessed everything of discovery the most penetrating, cvertliing of 
observation on human life the most distinguishing," Lord Bacon, has well 
said, that " Prosperity is the blessing of the OW Testament, advi rsity of the 
New." Let us crown our mother to-day, with a garland of flowers of her 
own planting. Let us minister unto her happiness from the blessings which 
a good Providence has bestowed upon her own transplanted energies in our 
persons and character. Let us today drink at the fountain of her patriotism, 
let us scan well those features of our ancestry which are reflected from its 
own pure and placid face. Let the vision teach us to look well to the sources 
and the care of our domestic, social, and political happiness ; let the draught 
invigorate us for high and holy activities in all that concerns the well being 
and perpetuity of our institutions and our Union. Nowhere can - 
kneel in prayer for God's blessing upon these, than in the home of our fathers ; 
from no place can we better take our new departure for any new contest in 
their support, than from this hallowed centre of their affections and inspira- 
tions. Let us turn from the voices of party to the clearer voices and teachings 
of home. Then shall we go forth again to the duties and trials of our every 
relation in life, blessed with a higher view of our responsibilities, inspired by 
a purer sentiment of national interest, and actuated by a nobler and more 
expansive desire and endeavor for the truest and most permanent happiness 
and glory of our country. 



THE DINNER, 



After the exercises at the Church, the procession formed in 
the order in which it was to enter the pavilion, and took up its 
line of march. The tent was a spacious one capable of accom- 
modating two thousand persons, and was erected upon the 
beautiful and level lot of land on the corner of Olive and Con- 
gress streets. Tables were here spread for nearly six hundred 
guests, invited by the city, comprising speakers of distinction, 
the military, engine companies and others ; and accommoda- 
tions were reserved for such as were disposed to purchase 
tickets. Rows of tables were laid the entire length of this 
huge pavilion, with a raised cross table at the head of the tent 
for distinguished speakers, and the President, Vice Presidents, 
Toast Master, &c. The gentlemanly caterer had not forgot- 
ten that important and somewhat notable corps, the reporters, 
to whom, in his generosity, he assigned the best seats in the 
arena. It was a pleasant sight to gaze upon. The long rows 
of white dishes, alternately relieved by vases of flowers and 
dishes of fruit, was enough to drive to madness, appetites 
sharpened by such labor and such fasting. However, every 
plate that was filled was not emptied, for after the company 
had thoroughly satisfied their hunger there appeared enough 
and to spare for another such company. All praise falls short 
of doing justice to that popular caterer, Horace Hamblkt, 
Esq., the landlord of the Ocean House, who provided for the 
occasion. 



' , OBT CELEBRATION. 

Everything substantial, fanciful, luxuriant, dainty — all that 
appetite could crave or taste desire was spread in sumptuous 
magnificence upon the boards ; and the way in which the mul- 
titude partook was more complimentary to Mr. II. than any- 
thing we could write. The organization of the company was 
as follows : 

President— MOSES DAVENPORT. 

VICE-PRESIDENTS, 

Josiah Little, Edward Barrill, 

S i I T. DcFord, David T. Woodwell, 

Mosi 

George W. Jaekman, Jr., I I urv 

h B. Moras, Pettingell, 

Moses Hale, William E. Carrier, 
John Porter, 

Stephen Tilton, Boston, 

Frederick J. Coffin, William II. Tyler, I 

Hi nrj i . Perkins, William II. Hum-, 

John H. Smith, Stephen W. Marston, 

1 Broi kway, S "tiord, 

William Graves, Nathaniel Hills. 

Toast-Mjisier— P. K. HILLS. 

After the company had entered the tent, and all were seated 
table, the President rose and made the following re- 
marks : 

Soxs or Nbwburtpori — 

Permit me to congratulate yon on this inter 
former residents with the citizens of this beautiful city. This mi 
friends and bn anticipated by ear citizens for the 

weeks with the most intense interest; ami I express but the sentiments of 
nil, when ! : , \\ Icome, thrice welcome to the home of your 
associations. 

This is a meeting in which we should all fei I interest and the 

brother, and friend meel friend, cannot hut result in lasting . 

I will now ask 
chaplain of the day. 

The chaplain f the occasion, Rev. Samuel Clark, of Phil- 
adelphia, then invoked divine grace upon the repast; when 
the company began to satisfy a hunger which a long and. 
arduous march had sharpened. 



THE DINNER. 53 

After the company had thoroughly refreshed the physical 
man, the President called them to order by the annexed brief 
speech : 

Friends and Sons from Abroad — 

The citizens of the place of your birth and former home, are most happy to 
meet yon on this the anniversary of our National Independence, and we 
bid you welcome to the hospitalities of our city. 

In looking round this assembly, and seeing so many of our sons here, gifted 
with the highest order of talent and eloquence, well may we your friends and 
brothers, expect a rich intellectual treat ; and for the purpose of calling out 
some of the talent and eloquence of some of our sons and former residents, 1 
will call upon the toast-master for the first regular toast. 

Hia speech having terminated amid the cheering of the 
multitude, he proceeded to announce the toast-master, Philip 
K. Hills, Esq., who road the regular toasts in a loud and dis- 
tinct voice, which were responded to by persons in the manner 
given below. 

The Returned Sons of Newburyport — who by their talents, character and 
attainments, have made her name so honorably known throughout the length 
and breadth of the land. 

The President called upon Hon. George Lunt, of Boston, 
late U. S. Attorney, who responded a3 follows : 

Mr. Mayor, Gbntlemen and Friends : I gladly fulfil the duty which 
has devolved upon me by the arrangements of the occasion, of responding to 
the sentiment which has just been announced. I congratulate you upon the 
auspicious arrival of this great and happy day. I congratulate you upon 
Itiose feelings, so honorable to the authorities and inhabitants of our ancient 
and beautiful town, which has prompted this call for the return of its sons 
and daughters to the place of their birth — and upon those kindling emotion* 
which have caught the same impulse from city to city and from town to town, 
and nniting in one common current have borne the returning pilgrims home 
from many a distant shrine, to mingle their hearts upon the altar of a com- 
mon and sacred devotion. 

It is thus that this gathering affords the most gratifying evidence, that the 
young have be%n nnseduced by newer scenes into forgetfulncss of what should 
be most dear to them, that the lapse of time has not been able to obliterate 
in those of maturer years the memory of early and valued impressions. And 
I hold this to be most honorable and true to the better instincts of our nature, 
and those higher motives and principles of our being, which reason and 
reflection and experience confirm. For whoever is not true, if there be any 



54 TIIE NEWBURYPOKT CELBBEATION. 

auch, to those dear and sacred associations, which in all ages and conntriea 
have bound the hearts of men to the place of their father's graves and of then- 
own boyish sports — to the scenes araon; which their first ties of friendship 
and earliest domestic and religious impressions were formed — must he dead 
to whatever raises human nature above the degradations of mere animil 
existence. 

Happ; i i; P r us and for your, thai this day affords -u<!> proof that these 
! not been forgotten or disregarded* by those who claim origin here; 

1 ive still been at 
home : that the hoy who went out from you burning with the ardor of youthful 
enterprise, to IV.ee the straggles of a more distant world has come ba 
with his early feelings grown stronger and deeper amidst the settled purposes 
of manhood ; tint if there be any — and wellwekBi are many 

such — who in the language of your sentiment, "by their talents, character 
and attainments," have contributed to the honor of their native town — be 
sure [that their successes arc only more dear to them, that som 
hand here will clasp their own more warmly, that so:ne kind heart at home 
will heat more proudly for their triumphs — and be sure that whatever monu- 
ment they may rear to fortune or to fame has a deep than thas 
built outwardly, amongst the graves and ashes of their kindred. 

We come amongst you then i •, merely, 

but as children of a common parent. We thank yon for your he! 
bat it is as a sou welcomes the liberal gifts of his father. We gladly take 
what you generously bestow, bul we cannol hi as a portion and 

a birthright. 

And yet, sir, be thanked ! For us all, and I speak for all — accept we pray 
you, our wannest and most filial acknowledgments ; for without this maternal 
recall, many of us to-day would be mingling in distant scenes from which our 
. i , far away. 

Not for this day or hour only arc wc come together. Not with this day or 
this occasion will emo relied within our hearts. 

Not here shall wc leave the glow of those sweet and holy I 
which ba 1 Wherever ourfuture years may 

14 passed, the memory of the events of this day will be with us. By then: 
ered and soothed and blessed. We shall feel that they hav< 
drawn more closely the ties which bind us to our Dative soil. We 
forget — we will not forget, thin. deal tons; and if it 

not be permitted that our dust should here: four kin- 

dred— like the Greek, who d ' remembered bis lovely Argos— like the 
Hebrew, who Beeks the bind of bis fathers for bis place of Bupsnure — wc too, 
will desire at least that some of this beloved i I on our 

insensible bosoms. 

I ba\e read somewhere that an eminent English author, n.-t lot 
in addn d for mental improvement, congratulated its 

members that such societies tended to break down the fictitious distinctions 



THE DINNER. 55 

of life and to bring human '■■ r by a common motive 

and in: irest. 1. it u- trust that BUcb may prove one of the happy n 
our gathering to-day ; and allow me to give you, in co illustra- 

tion of the doctrine I would inculcate in the ol<l and bright history of onr 
native town. In the days of her former pride, and of a prosperity , which I 
trust, she will one day far surpass — more than sixty years ago— i 
President of the Doited States— that great and venerat' , whom I 

cannot help regarding as the noblest and happiest of mankind, since 
dercd unequalled services to his country, and went to his grave without a 
stain upon his public or private fame — was here entertained by the author- 
ities of the town, in the house of that eminent and pi i h -nt, Mr. 
Tracy. On the morning following his arrival, he was received by Mr. 
Dalton, who wa^s, as you well know, a member of the first Senate of the 
United States ; and in both instances in a mansion yet standing conspicu- 
ously in our streets. 

The most noted people of the town were present, and among them one 
eminent divine,* long since deceased, with whom Washington was ei 
in conversation, after breakfast, upon publie affairs, in the midst of a distin- 
guished circle of guests. This gentleman ventured the assertion 

; ears there would not be a crowned head in Europe" — from which 
opinion Washington, with a more far-seeing sagacity, dissented, and while 
giving his views upon this important topic, a messenger eamc in to inform 
him that some person at the door insisted on seeing the President. Mr. 

directed him to be sent away, but the ear of Washington had angl 
some intimation of the request, and learning, upon enquiry that a poor man 
to speak with him, he request 1 .! him to be introduced. As he en- 
tered, he rushed to the President with the cry, " God bless you, Major 
, ;on! God bless yon, Major Washington 1" The President recog- 
nized him at once, and calling him " Cotton," shook him kindly by the hand. 
It was indeed a person well known to the last generation under the popular 
name of "Colonel" Cotton, who had been Washington's servant in the old 
French war, and attended him at Braddock's defeat, that bloody and disas- 
trous day, when the young Virginian officer saved the army from titter 
destruction, and grasped those first laurels which grew and flourished until 
they became immortal as the records of lis country's history. This man 
ceived and dismissed with a liberal present in the golden 
currency of the day — when gold really had .-. value — which the broken down 
old soldier wore afterwards suspended ahout his neck. And I assure you 
that among many brilliant incidents of his progress through this town and 
vicinity, nothing of the good an 1 great President's visit has given me more 
pleasure than reflection upon the kind and gentle feeling thus exhibited, and 
which the events of this day are so well calculated to promote, and, I trust 
perpi tnati to th 1 ti st generation. 

*Rev. Mr. Murray. 



56 THE NEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION. 

The Day we Celebrate. 

Rev. Samuel L. Caldwell, of Bangor, was callel upon, and 
spoke as follows : — 

Mr. Mayor, and to follow my professional fashion, Brethren — 

li is a tnck of my profession to take a text, and say under it what wc 
choose; to have the text one thing, and the discourse another. It will not 
be strange, sir, if I do not stick to the text you give me, for the fact is, the 
Fourth of July is down — " The day we celebrate" is in the shade. The 
great Republic sinks into the little municipality, and Newburyport takes 
possession of our memory and our love. Our heroes aro not of '76 — not 
of Bunker Hill and Saratoga — but those who plunged into the "imminent 
deadly breach " between " Up-alongers " and " Down alongars." Our mem- 
ories arc not "itli Hancock and Adam-, Jefferson and Lee, but with our old 
schoolmasters — with tin; antiquities, the human curiosities with which this 
bles ed old town used to so abound. 
Mr ('. e ad hi !'h al l ome. B ■. e.'.iin : 

" My fool "M is my native heath, and my nann 
He loved Newburyport— he loved her sons — he loved one of her dan 
he loved some of her grandsons, and he hoped one of these days to love some 
ofhergraj said, he must confess, that the New- 

buryport of the present was not exactly the Newbnryport that filled his 
memory and his imagination and his love. He was a l>oy here in that quiet 
interval when -.lie h id nothing for la I boys to do ; when she only taught and 
trained them and let them go. He confessed, he thought tho locomotive an 
intruder — the steam mill an impertinence. Improvement and pro- 
not belong here, lie wanted the old place kept as a relic, and a refuge from 
a hurrying and working-da; world, to find here a Sabhath and a rest. Be 
ome here in the Indian Summer, when the year was sleeping toward 
its death: when the brown and slumbrous air lay soft and loving over 

. Hill" and "Old Maids' Hall " and the " Devil's Den j" when, on 
the old boy-haunts, t!" p 

" a glory and a gleam 

That never was on lai 
rheconseei 
Then it seemed most like the old time. He could sleep and lie could dream. 
But sir, said Mr. ('., 1 retract, I retract. It is not so. The das 
The love of liberty is superior to the love of plao I rty, and country 
ii ..id and ju i supn mai j . Tin- Republic expands again — tic little 
town, the dear old home cannot till our love. The Day ami tho Deed we 
celebrate, and not these only, 'en libi rty, the principles of liberty which on 
tin- day were inaugurated : for which Newburyport made patriotic and gen- 
erous contribution, the memory of which makes her dearer; liberty— greater 
than home or country, without which they are n irthl - the principles of 



Tin: dis . 57 

it, the love of it ; if in any mease or dying— lei 

at the old altar, among r line and 

love of liberty, the id by ii and for it 

were nurtured, let us here and now revive and re-kindle it. After a few 

words of the same tenor about cherishing the 

and universal, Mr C. closed with the hope and the prayer that no son of 

Newbnryport, heir of her memories, trained in her schools and chnrches, 

filial and faithful to her, would ever he recreant to the principles of Liberty of 

which this day was the inauguration. 

/ 'lor of the Dai/. 

Rev. George D. Wildes was .ailed upon. He remarked t! lat 
a church of some authoritative pretension-, but he placed these below those 
of his brother who had preceded him. and was willing to stand with him. If 
he had been called upon to respond to " Hail Columbia," or " The Day we 
Celebrate," he might have said somethi 

was decidedly beneath his powers. He had already bad bis n 
church. In his feeble manner he had p tpon the altar of 

liberty, and should sit down and hold bis p 
been toasted by the scorching rays of the sun until he was perfectly 

In Memory of j a resident of Newbnryport, and 

one of the bri els in her crown. 

The venerable Doctor Dana responded to this sentiment, and 

■we regret that his voice a '■• that but few could catch 

his words. 

Mi;. President — 

On this - .is, and surrounded as I am by no; a few who have 

far superior claims to be heard, I might well content myself t.. be a mere 
listener. 

the name of Bufos King has ' me to 

remain v> holly silent — especially a- it is probable few are present who have 
hud equal advantages for a personal knowledge of this gr< at man. 

Mr. King was not a native of Newbnryport, but wi 
favorite son. He pursued his I 

great man, Theopbilos Parsons, who for many years was a distin 
jurist anil pleader a: thi in later life was no ll 

as Chief Judge of our Supreme ( lourl 

It is a remarkable fact, that in two 
■ 
his opponent. It was thought b; the court 

was sometimes held — that the pupil with hie 

preceptor. It was about that til Ig a boy of ten or twelv 

old, I was repeatedly feasted with his eloquence. 



58 THE NEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION. 

It may seem strange, hut it is a fact, that at the distance of more than 
Bevi nty years 1 have as vivid an impression of his person, his air, his voice, 
his affluence of ideas and language, as if these were affairs of yesterday. It 
so happened that at that time I was studying the orations of Cicero, and it 
ofien occurred to my mind that if there was any living man who resembled 
the great Iioman orator, it was Kufus i 

Mr. Kin.: early represented the town m the Genera] Court. But he soon 
after received a more emphatic expression of public approbation and confi- 
dence. Though little more than thirty, he was selected as a member of the 
Convention in 1767, which was appointed to prepare a Constitution of the 
United States. In that assembly of great and distinguished men, collected 
from all parts of the country, he aided in framing a constitution which has 
admiration of the world, and which lias been, under God, the 
principal source of peace and order, the wealth and happiness of our 
country. 

But a new and arduous duty awaited him. He was chosen by his towns- 
men a member of the convention in Massachusetts, which was called to ratify 
the Federal Constitution. It is well known, that before the assembling of thi 8 
convention, the most formidable objections were raised against the adoption 
of the Constitution. Had the vote been taken at its tirst meeting, it would 
doubtless have passed in the] negative. But there were giants in those 
days The sonnd reasonings and powerful eloquence of Parsons, King, 
Ames, and others of similar stamp, triumphantly refuted every objection, and 
the constitution was adopted. 

Soon after this Mr. King removed into the State of New York. But his 

reputation had preceded him, and he was selected, with Gen. Schuyler, to 

attend the first Congressional Senate, which met under the new constitution- 

In that august body, his vigorous mind, his splendid eloquence, and his stores 

of political information were called into requisition, and displayed to the 

. Ivantage. His course was undeviatingly firm ej but he 

was no violent partizan. He generously cultivated acquaintance a: 

ship with gentlemen of sentiments opposed to his own. Of this trait in his 

. Mr. Benton, a well known political opponent, has furnished a 

nice, lie had himself uttered a speech in which, und< r some 

excitement, he had utter, d expressions Bomewhal harsh and severe. Mr. King 

saw him soon afterward, and taking his hand, spoke well of his talents, and 

i public life. But like a true 

friend, he Uttered the voice of warning, against those asperities to which an 

mind sometimes exposed him. The reproof was gratefully 

Mr. Benton, in pure deferem to Mr. King Bnppi ssed the 

which he would otherwise have published. 

But Mr. King was destined to a still higher elevation. Bj I 

ton, whose discernment of character, and skill in assigning public 

men to the stations for which they seem best fitted, was proverbial, he was 

to the Court ot I It is remarkable that, thirty 



THE DINNER. o'J 

years afterwards, he was invested with the same office l.y President John Q. 
Adams. In this highly interesting station, he sustained with great ability, 
faithfulness and sun ess, the rights and interests of his country ; while, by the 
mingled dignity and elegance of his manners, he secured the admiration of all 
who knew him. 

1 add in conclusion, that Mr. King gave an ardent and unwavering support 
to the policy and measures of the Father of his country. This he did under 
the deep conviction that in that policy and those measures, were involved the 
dearest interests of our nation. And was not his judgment in this grand 
point correct ? Will any one deny that so far as the principles and news of 
Washington have been carried out, our nation has prospered ? Will any one 
deny that when this path has been abandoned, we have unfailingly smarted 
for it ! 1 can form, then, no kinder wish for my country, than that in each 
of its future Presidents, it may find — not a Washington — the wish would ba 
extravagant — the age of miracles has ceased — but one who will follow in the 
same path. Let me wish, too, that every such follower of Washington may 
have the vigorous and efficient support of a Kufus King. 

Tht Memory of John Barnard Swett, M. />, who fell a victim to the yellow 
fever in 1 790, while in the discharge of his duty. The virtues anil self- 
sacrificing zeal of the Father, endears to us the Son. 

Colonel Samuel Swett, of Boston, was called up, and replied 
as follows : 

Me. President — 

My old age is an all-sufficient apology for not making a speech on the pres- 
ent occasion, especially as I made and published a speech on the subject of our 
native place, at our last Centennial, 'twenty years ago. Another one of mine 
on the subject would be a twice told tale. I pleaded then my inability to 
speak from my long disuse of public speaking, and that apology has become 
twenty times more cogent now. I have since that, made a pilgrimage to the 
birth place of our adored and beautiful Merrimack, and seen the infant rivulet 
nourished by the bosoms fair and beautiful of Squam and Winnepisseoge 
lake9. Soon afterwards he pn^ on the spprt of boyhood, joyously leaping 
and bounding, like a feathered mercury, over the wild and romantic fulls he 
encounters, and sporting in lovely dalliance with the fair streams that unite 
with him on the way, and especially the loveliest of them all, our own sweet 
Artichoke. Arrived here in our own town at last, in his full maturity of 
magnitude and grandeur, he enters into bans of marriage with the magnificent 
Ocean. When the united beauty of the two, become one, appears to belong 
to some brighter region than our terrestrial globe. 

It occurs to me also, on the present occasion, that the most ingenious 
passage of Pope, the greatest poet of our language, except the bard of Avon, 
is directly applicable to our connection as townsmen. lie compares the 
various circles of mankind with whom we are connected, to the circular waves 



«>0 THE LTION. 

formed by a pebble drop] ra of a lake. And the very fir:.; and 

minent circle be ri pr ei tog, together with our parents 

and friends, our Qeigbbors, which is, in otber words, our townsmen. And we 
arc comn i I ;l love our neighbors as on] 

Iu my early days, long time ago, two generations have pat 
it was tli" custom on convivial occasions like the present, to "drink healths 
live fathoms deep," and the imperative law of the table was, that evi ry one 
should gn ell his store, or drink a bottle of wine. As to \ I 

I am a sworn temperance man. My story is already anticipated, and my 
only remaining alternative is to give you my ode or song. Kelson, on bis 
last victorious engagement, telegraph " England expectf 

lo bis duty." And Newbury demands the same of every son of hers 
to-day. I yield to no man li vin 

I do love the very stones in the wbnryport. Though no poet, I 

will do my best. My theme is 

KEWBTJRY. 
Here I on our 1 ling — 

tanding, 
■ 
And fiei 

around; 

found; 

His prayer was heard : doom, 

1 i 

Or to proud galleons, wafting naval S . 

Our ft ance hurled, 

Our pal 

To whom the homage of all hearts is paid; 

Well 

T Kills. 

But floe s and herds embellish all the land, 

I 

Of pati e band, 

Wc'i i native land. 

tamo town. 

Our time 



THE DIS'XER. 61 

But though compelled to name so small a part, 

heart. 
Our floral youth with, 

He concluded by offering the following : 

-The accomplished scholar an 1 gentleman, and the benevo'enl 
.■nan. 1 1 i munificent donation for a Newburyport Library, 

demonstrates to future ages, that though his as bis soul is great. 

—The worthy son of a noble sin 1 — atir native town or the 
Commonwealth ha-; never produced a more eminent lawyer and judge, a 
purer patriot, or a more honorable m in. 

The following was then handed bo the toast-master: 

James Jackson, M. L). of Boston, a native of Newburyport — the model 
physician and universally loved man. 

States ami his Co. 

Attorney General Cushing responded to this in a powerful 
and el ch. Relying upon Mr. Cushing to furnish 

us with a copy of his remarks, which for want of time he was 
unable to do, we failed to take notes, and our readers will be 

obliged to hear with us tl .ntnient in seeing but a 

sketch of his able remarks, and that taken from memory : 
Hon. i mid unbounded applause and said in substance, 

isure to meet his friends upon this occasion. But he 
trished to throw eff the robes of office, which were an encumbrance, and 
stand before them untrammelled by party distinctions, to return his acknowl- 
edgment , :ll behalf 
of the Pi en ind in behalfof 

i his and their thanks fur the honorable remembrance of th.m. 
is not a son of Newburyport, ood is of old New- 

bury, and his relation to us was near. Hisde i ag this assembly 

was to pres ml his sympathies, to lay upon the altar of dear remini 
bis heartfelt respect for Newburyport, to desire its highi St prosperity and to 
dwell on the ph . i He referred I. linglj t Rev. 

Dr. Dana 

the fe-ti to dwell on Jamiiiar topics, on home and home 

[ear to us, but he must be allowed to refer to that 
more enlarged and elei i Hi country, which i- the more endeared 

to us in proportion to our love of home. We must remember that we cele- 
brate trfc day that inaugurated the freedom, the power, and the greatness of 
oar country. 

When we look be il npon its history, wc can but draw the moral, that we 
should nil have faith in the success and prosperity of this union. Wc must 
ti 



62 THE N'EWBUUYPORT CELEBRATION. 

take courage, notwithstanding the perils through which we are now passing, 
look liack to the days of our Pilgrim fathers. Through all the diffi- 
culties we will stand, and the country is ready to impose its principles, if not 
on the crumbling nations of Europe. 
The Constitution is not destined to go down in our day. Ere the day 
comes to destroy the Union, many disasters must 00 nth seal 

must be broken — thejirst seal is not yet opened. Before we cease to be can- 
cipicil by the Constitution of the United States, our cities will be filled with 
the blood of civil war, and then some successful soldier, some mighty hero, 
may arise from the smoke of the battle, to rescue us from an oblivious future. 
Far is it from mc to distrust, to waver, and on this "8th anniversary of Inde- 
, we should feel that this is one country — that our interests are 
indivisible. 

William E. Currier, Esq., being called on by the President, 
arose and said : 
Me. President and Gentlemen- — 

In that country of fame, where Liberty dwells, there is my Home! That 
is the sentiment of every American this day, the anniversary of our National 
Independence, whether they arc on the soil of these United States, on the 
southern arm of this western continent, sailing over the wild ocean waves, or 
on the continents in other sections of the globe. This day we celebrate. It 
is well. By this demonstration, this celebration, we show to the rising gen- 
eration, avc to the world, that we appreciate the independence we en- 
i independence so nobly achieved by the heroes and patri" 

Union, and transmitted to us to foster and defend. The 
•.ifested July 4th, 177G, at Philadelphia, when that sacred instrument 
— the Declaration of American Independence — was signed, has gone out 
from tliat central poinl like the rays of a meridian sun, shedding its genial 
influence over the broad surface of the earth. That influi 
power, destined to crush the monarchy and aristocracy of the old world ; and 
lose of the 19th century, will establish a Republican 
Government over that Tast eastern continent. The continent of '- 
land, now being rapidly peopled by citizens from every section of tl 
feel the influence, and will establish an independent republican government 
there. I should he but three General Governments on 

of the earth, 1 propose this sentiment — 

, | ! be the 1 

E. Plnribus I mini ! with equal judicial, legislative and executive 
powers. Independence forever ! ! 1 1 in Union ! ! ! 

—Our native State. The birth place of our country'* liberty 
— whose escutcheon remains as bright and untarnished as the oecantli.it laves 
its shores. 

Warren Tilton, Esq., Chief Marshal of the Boston Delega- 



TDE DINNER. 63 

tion, being called upon to respond, remarked as follows : — 
Mb. Matob ami Gentlemen— 

It were better, perhaps, that some one older and abler than myself should 
respond to the sentiment just read. But no son of the Bay State, however 
humble, ought, in my judgment, ever to hesitate when called upon to ac- 
knowledge the honorable mention of her name. 

I need say nothing of h.r history, for as her great statesman whose ashes 
are at Marshfield, but whose name and fame have extended wherever our 
language is spoken, once said, and said truly, " The world knows it by 
heart." She is small in territorial extent, but in nothing else. She is rich 
in mere material wealth, but she is richer in intellectual and moral wealth. — 
which is far better. " Who reads an American book '!" is the flippant inter- 
rogatory over the water. She can refer you to William H. Prescott as merely 
one of her sons who can answer that question. And again, " Where 
was ever produced an American Jurist V She can point you, in reply, to 
Daniel Webster, Joseph Story, Theophilus Parsons and Lemuel Shaw ; and 
so on to the end of the chapter. 

Would you know something of her sentiments ? They were fitly enough 
expressed on Bunker Ilill, and as for her notions of all sorts, they are pretty 
well known wherever politics, religion, letters, arts, sciences, trading and 
speculating are recognized, the world over. Her character and her disposition 
are a study for the quid nuncs. You can scarcely name a subject she hasn't 
discussed and considered. You can't name a principle she hasn't looked into 
and weighed ; you can't name a virtue she hasn't espoused ; you can't name 
an ism she hasn't flirted with. She combines the staidness of the matron 
with the pert affectation and charming and attractive nonsense of tin nj 
in her teens. In a word, with some foibles — nay, faults if you please — so 
many are her noble points, that no one of her sons who believes there is any 
thing in the world to thank God for, can ever cease to be grateful that he was 
born on her soil, and educated in her habits — political, moral and intellectual. 

It has been said, and with some degree of emphasis, that the American 
people, as a class, have no idea of local attachment. How fur the fact that 
we have no law of primogeniture has furnished a cause for such a charge, I 
will not stop now to consider; but, sir, migratory, restless, and adventurous 
as wo are, who believes there is a class of men living who have more interest 
in the place of their birth than the sons of Massachusetts * 

Tbcy may be toiling in the mines of California ; they may be penetrating 
the forests of the far West ; they may be tempting the dangers of distant 
seas, or walking in strange countries and listening to stranger tongues; but, 
wherever they are, their "heart untravelled fondly turns" homeward, for, 
they can find, they will tell you, no freer, nobler, happier land than the < )ld 
Bay State, God bless her! A goodly state is Massachusetts to be born in — 
a goodly state to die and be buried in ! 

To-day, sir, it is natural to look back upon the early struggle of the Revo- 



64 THE NEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION. 

lution, and consider the Bfa pa Massachusetts Wok therein, and it 
grateful ta-k to pass them all in review; but, on such an occasion, and at 
ithering as this -.involutarily, to that particular spot in 

ill of t ag been 

of our nativity. And well may you be proud, sir — (Ton ' — we, for 
are we not, every one of us, her children,] for the part Bhe played 
eventful struggle. She to >k her Stand curly, and I have read somewhere, — 
probably in the History of Mrs Smith, which has just been published, (and 
here let me remark, parenthetically, that, for perspicuity of style, felieicity 
and elegance of diction and occasional passages of simple and nervous 
. thai work i- in my Jul. men:, comparable to many historical 
works of far higher pretensions) I have read, I say, that during the • 
of the Stamp Act, not a stamp was over paid for or used in Newburyport. 
At Bunker Hill, as you know, Bhe was nobly represented, . 
in every battle, probably, up to the surrender at Torktown. In fact, tin 
place in New England, not even Boston excepted, was readier in the Council 
or the field. Sbc volunteered her opinion on the subject of our National 
I ration, her citizens voting in full and 
open town meeting thai > uW declare the colonies independent.. 

Hi ill support them in the measures with their lives and their fortunes- 

She levied her volunteer companies in the broad aisles of her churches, — on 
il. rd's day, — in the very presence of the God of battles, and the arbiter 
of the fate of nations. Her ministers of the Gospel, inspired with tl 1 
liberty, left the pulpit and the desk to join the army — to pray, and if need be, 
to fight. 

As I I nigh these streets to-day, I have thought Newbury- 

port was no mean town to claim as one's birth-place. I have never yet seen, 
and I n the man ashamed to acknowled 

to In r. As freshly, as if it were but yesterday, though it i- 
ago, this very month, do 1 remember the feelings I experienced when I took 
my leave < irt for a new home in Boston. If a boy can sutler, 1 

goffered then. My school companions bade me a l 1 with a 

heart full almost to bursting, as it seemed to me, I turnc.l my face towards 
• n . . ■ -.It was a I i 

ar-sighted, but, Turnpike, 

an. i ; looked mi' from the window c.: I was so misty < 

coul i nut see the Bag-ground thered the "hi 

(ten togi ther. 
Myei bathe has heard the charge 

p n't people are continually ' Li 

v had very gooi 
However that may be. I I to know, but I 

il school, after we had moved to Boston, 1 was nick 
«amed "Newburyport" by n:i 



THE DINNER. 65 

heart was always on my lips. I told them then, and I believe it now, that 
there was no place for swimming like the Merrimack river and the " Four 
Rocks" or " Fur Rock" a* we boys used euphoniously to call it,— no place to 
skate on like " Little River" and "the Pond" — and no candy in all the 
confectionery shops in Boston, which had or could have the flavor of George 
Tappan's in Middle street, Xewburyport. Speaking of George Tappan's 
candy, sir, forcibly reminds me of an incident which I cannot forbear 
relating, bnt I trust that the Attorney General of the United States whom 
we have with us to-day, and who, I perceive, has his sharp eye upon me. 
won't go home to Washington and procure a cabinet meeting to be sum 
moned on account of it. It so happened that the younger brother of the 
Attorney General and myself wire very intimate friends, and being one day 
upon a voyage of discovery, amongst his affairs, we found a box of coins 
which in his travels through the various countries of Europe he had collated 
with that same degree of industry, probably, which has distinguished his ca- 
reer from its very inception to the present day. Many of them, doubtless, 
were of considerable value, but looking upon them as "brumagers" which 
our distinguished guest could not pass, we did him an act of charity by pre- 
vailing on George Tappan, from time to time, after we -had discovered them, 
to "take 'em." By degrees, as we thinned them out, and they began to 
look less and less like cents, Mr. Tappan examined them more carefully, 
and finally, on a certain occasion, when we had offered him a "brumager" 
indeed, he was obdurate hearted, and said to us, substantially, what Nat. 
Willis said to the boy who asked him for a penny, " individual, I know not 
the coin ! 

I perceive, Mr. Mayor, and I felicitate you upon it, that you have re-mod- 
elled your Court House, — doubtless at a large and considerable expense. 
You have now, certainly, a very fine and commodious building, and one far 
handsomer than the old one ; but what, I pray you, has been done with that 
splendid wooden figure of Justice (which adorned the old one and in which the 
old one so many years rejoiced) holding aloft those dreadful scales which 
were a terror to evil doers ? I have seen sir, and have studied, somewhat 
many specimens of ancient and modern statuary, but none which ever ex- 
cited my wonder and provoked my awe like that; none so noble, majestic, 
awful, dire. I can never forget it. 

Nor can I forget, sir, the little brick school house in the Mall, and the kind 
teachers who there initiated me in the rudiments of application and study. 
Least of all can I forget the Sunday School of the Federal street church, and 
the disinterested men who taught me (which is, after all, the "chiefest thing" 
in the world) how to strive with God's grace, to win — by possibility — a place 
in heaven. I thank them now and here for their kindness, and I assure 
them their names arc graven on my memory and my heart forever. 

But, sir, it is time I had said my say. I rejoice in the prosperity of your 
city. We read in the Gazetteers no longer that "Newburyport is a seaport 
loiax delightfully situated on the banks of the Merrimack." I congratulaSo 



66 THE NEWin RYI'ORT CELEERATION. 

you on your extended influence. I congratulate you on your rapidly inereas_ 
ing facilities for intellectual and moral culture; on the enterprise and thrift 
of your sons, anil the refinement of your mothers, wives and daughters. 
Newburyport i of Boston in the education of her daughters. 

She knows full well that the culture of her daughters implies the virtue and 
stability of her sons, ami that thereby on her part, the salvation of th 
secured. 

I will give yon, in conclusion, the following sentiment : 
Vi I i 1 to the a.dent 

• the Revolutionary times and stronf ! . bow, (as 

it is captiously stated) bitterly hostile to ard 
tea; and better Still every one of them toa man in favor of the 

77c Prnii .'<••■ ' —None more eminent in Divinity, Physic, and Law, than 
those who wen- first ushered into existence on the green and lovely banks of 
the Merrimack. 

C. C. Felton, Greek Professor of Harvard University, a 
native of old Newbury, replied as follows : 

Bis. Mayor — 

I did not know until lately, that I had a ri^ht to participate in these 
festivities. The orator of the day, in his elegant and interesting i 
"j wlii h I listened with unbroken attention, notwithstanding the fervors of 
this July sun, described the early i ids betwi i n tie inland parts of the ancient 
town of Newbury, and the more cultivated region of thesca-boaul. I belong, 
sir, to the " rural districts," and not to the commercial and n 
the town by tin' sea. The orator however went on to show that Newbury 
was the mother of Newburyport. I am a son of Newbury, .n 

the uncle of the sons of Newburyport — of th- greater part, 
therefore, of this most respectable assembly ; and by virtue of this < 
relationship, as well as by the cordial invitation with which I hi 
honored, may claim the right of a seat at this board, among' the returning 
children of ilii~ hospitable town. 

And, Mr. Mayor, 1 can truly say that I am happy to be here !< 
meet the gathered sons of Newbury, on this men omewhat 

scorching anniversary. It is now nearly forty years — " how mj 
while my tongue n lat s" — sin e, in early childhood, 1 was borne away from 
the pl.ee of m\ birth, caring little and knowing nothing, to whal 
ihori the currents of life were drifting me. I hare but sehl.i' 
bury since ; but the scenes which first met my eye were impressed on my 
memory, too deeplj to be forgotten. The old training field, where an ancestor 
of mine r3 himself as sergeant in a militia company, was to me 

another Campus Martins ; the beautiful 1 ination, 

liko the bro 11 Hellespont of Homer; and Pipesi 

hke the <■• i hi Olympus to the sky. Indeed, when recently I had I 
pleasure of dashing, on board a 
Franco e stretched in double line, from Tenedos to 



ME DINNER. 67 

Troy— the most magni i : the eye of man ever gazed upon— it 

seemed to me the renowned Bellespont was hardly bo broad and boi 
my native river, in the memories of my ehildhood. 

I listened with great satisfaction to the manly, eloquent, patriotic speech of 
the distin i y General Gushing,) who hold 

the councils of the nation. To every word of that I aj a 

hearty Amen! !!■ all ■'■■ terms, to the Bufferings inflicted on 

the country, and on thia town, by the last war with England. Sir, bis words 
brought back to me the circumstances of the time, when I, a mere child, left 
birtb. Pardon me for dwelling a single moment on the 
events the honorable gentleman so eloquently touched upon, and so vividly 
brought bai k I 

The .1 one of the col! 

of the winter of IS 15 — is tixed in my memory by the circumstance, that the 
news of the peace with England was shouted along the roa 1 by I 
drivers. I hild b i i bad known something of the disti 

brought upon our people; of the poverty it had deepened and ag| 
of the despair that darkened the poor man's fireside. 1 have never I 
the sudden joy the blessed announcement of peace thrilled through every 
poor man's heart. It was like the outburst of Spring, with t! 
its vi i \ | its sofl vernal breez j of birds, after the snow 

and ice, and frozen silence of winter. God forbid— and I call upon your 
distinguished guest to join me in the prayer— God forbid that this prosperous 
city, and the smiling country around it, should 
blighting breath of war. 

1 am called upon to respond to the toast in honor of the professional men 
who have gone forth from Newbury. I am not, ur If, a professional man, 
in the mi t term. But I may claim the honor of having 

had something to do with making a great many professional men— of letting 
loose upon society, a great many lawyers, physicians, and clergymen ; like 
the fat knight in the play, who, though not witty himself, was the cause of wit 
in others. It is justa quarter of a century since I was called by President 
Qnincy, to an olliee of instruction in Cambridge, ami during that lot 
nearly t- Bed out from Harvard, into the pro- 

fessional aid practical walks of life. As I have witnessi 1 the frequent and 
brilliant Buceessea of these hoys of mine, I have been tempted to exclaim, 
with good old master Cradock, in .Miss Sedgwick's charming novel of Hope 
Leslie, " Did I not teach them the ton- 

In the course of my busy life, it has been my fortune to meet with many 
- ions, who have sprung from Newbury. But I 
was not aw. re, until the call for this reunion was Bent out, to summon them 
borne to the ahars and household gods of their childhood, how justly our 
native town may pride herself on the aggregate number of her disting 
sons; what large support religion and morals have drajvn from the learning 
and piety of those who have occupied the sacred desk; how deeply the 



68 THE NEWBUB7P0RT CELEBRATION. 

administration of justice has been indebted to the integrity and ability of 
those who have sat in the tribunals, or pleaded the cause of the inm 

. and how much the legislation of the countr. lilted by 

the wisdom and patriotism of those lawgivers who trace their origin to this 
town. 

This is not the occasion, nor am I the person, to enlarge on the merits of 
I and good men, among the living and the dead, who, born here, have 
consecrated themselves to justice, their country, and their God. But you will 
me in speaking briefly of one, who hut a few months ago, closed a 
long and eminent professional career. 1 allude to the 1 Greenleaf, 

I had ii"! the pleasure and honor of a personal acquaintance with this 
try, until be became Royal Profc-Bor «f Law in the 
School at Cambridge, then illustrated by the learning and eloquence of Story. 
On that occasion I first knew him. He and I were inaugurated as 1'rofessors — 
iv, and I of Greek, on the same day. From that time 1 i njoyed hit 
unbroken friendship, as long as he lived. Of his course and character as a 
boy in your public schools ; of his struggles as a young man, with poverty . 
of bis Christian submission to the bitter lot of sorrow and bereavement that 
tell heavily upon the early periods of his domestic life; of the success which 
crowned with triumph these brave conflicts ; many, probably, here have more 
personal knowledge than I ; hut 1 am sure no one can have a deeper impres- 
sion of the purity and nobleness of character, which came forth tried like gold 
from the heat of the contest. 

Mr. Greenleaf was one of those men, who know how to make the most of 
time. No client ever suffered wrong from feebleness or neglect, at his hand ; 
for he spared no effort and 6hrunk from no study that could throw light upon 
the cause he bad undertaken to conduct. As a teacher, he shone with peculiar 
lustre. The large body of intelligent young men who sat under his instruc- 
tions valued them beyond all price. Calm in his manners ; with tl. 
of superior intellect and extensive knowledge; with the blandnesa and 
courtesy of a Christian gentleman; considerate of the feelings of all who 
stood to him in the relation of scholar t" m i onscioue of his i 

bilities to them, and through them to his country li 1 in an 

extraordinary measure, their 1 t ion. 

Mr. Greenleaf 's contributions to the literature of his profession, I cannot, 
of cours . t of. His studies lay in a province far remote 

from mine. Of his work on Evidence, however, I may say, thai besides 
taking the very highest rank among the text hooks of legal science, it is one 
which any educated gentleman may read with pleasnn • .mother 

te ingenious application of the rules ol li to the testimony 

of the 1'. ay say that it is a striking illrj earnest 

ristian Faith on the foundation 
of the most rigorous argument, while the daily beauty of his life proved with 

v his rule of ■ 

Mr Greenleaf was not, technically speaking, a literary man. la his youth 



THE I>I.\ 

he Jul not Bhare the advantages of :i I W die other young 

men were cultivating their : istes, and furnishing thi ir minds " i:i the 

itful studies" — with^ the leisure and exemption from care secured to 
the favored scholar beneath the shade 
fighting hand to hand on the battle-field i 

an exqnisi ■•■ a 1 have beard him speak, I have admired the 

implicit; and attic beauty of I 1 thi 

public discourses- his Inaugural Ad -or bis 

Eulogy on Story — without ex] written style the charm of the 

easily Bowing language, of the sparing but tasteful ornament, and of the 
clearness and logical accuracy of the thought. 

In social intercourse, Mr. Greenleaf'a manners were m iked bj a 
gravity, equally remote from lightness and asceticism. 1 think we 

ng a'.out him — fond memories, not painful 
, but tempering the joy and exultation of the pi 
sadness of the past. His voi e was gentle and low; i - 
thoughtful, but placid, and often lighted with tl 
His conversation was ready and friend] 
averse to decent wit, and 

occupations had in a measure withdrawn him from -.una! interco 
concentrated his social joys in the sam 
to the delights of intellectual converse, 
he contributed more than an equal share to the common fund. 

At the close o three score years and ten, afl 
labor, and closed by the worship i dd altar, he i 

by a peaceful euthanasia, and sle] 

- who wraps the 
About him tjud lies dow 

But he has left us his example of Christian fortitude . ■ nerve our 

hearts when we too are called to practi 

discouragements, which should strengthen us in ov. . 

we too may have to encounter; of intellectual improi 

few opportunities and scanty means ; of high moral 

faith, in the midst of no common perplexities, and under trial- of no 

severity ; of the faithful discbarge of every duty, in i 

I feel that 1 cannot pi I i ter of 1'rof. Gi 

be portrayed In re, and as it has been ; 
eloquent colleague — Prof. Parsons — a 
not present with us to day. I could nol 
mony on this 
assembly of the men of New! 

absence in a foreign land, dep; isfaction of wit- 

honors with which all that was mortal of hit 
to the bosom of our common mother earth. Returning from abroad, and 



70 Till: NEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION. 

finding his place vacant, it seemed to me that one of the old landmarks had 
been swept away — one of the solid pillars, on which the temple of justice, 
virtue and religion reposes, had been overthrown. 

In former ages, a stitue would have been raised to commemorate the 
ich a citizen, that the coming generations might be in 

ius d Is. K we erect no statue to eternize his outward 

at least set up in our own souls the image of his virtues, 
and honor his memory, by making those virtues our own. 

The Pa ,Y ! - 'ompany. 

. T. M. Clark, of Hartford, Conn., the identical Cap- 
tain of that well remembered corps, was called upon, and 
responded as folio 
Mb Mayor \ - i > Fellow Citizens — 

This will hardly do — it seems rather formal, and I have no intention of 

making a regular speech. You have already had speeches enough and far 

more able than 1 could make. I wish just to have a talk with you about old 

nl in remembrance of the Juvenile Artillery Company, would rather 

address yo 

Mr. Mayor ikd Fellow Soldiers — 

But tl There is not i nough left of that distinguished corps 

which v. i thirty years ago, to form a Corporal's Guard. 

.Mr. Mayor ind Fellow Bora — 

it to revive the reminiscences of our early days, to 
recall thi >iat ions which belong to our child- 

hood. What were the influences which determinned your character ' How 
were you taughl "iisofthe discipline of life? What was the 

first chapter in your daily morning and evening experience, which prepared 
you for ; i routine of this earthly existence? It was when you 

to and from the " old 
ture." 1 i on on the < ruinea tl 

expression of sadness and anxiety which 
i as night drew on, the cow was not to he fo i 

le tramps to the distant Blough, around wh 
cow would ely linger ; thai 

i 'i of Bunyan's pilgrim's troubles, with Tur- 
key Hill in the rear, « I I I in ancii 

How ma cluster around that somewhat 

which in si ■ trange way furnished Bummer food to nearly all the 

i I to read of lazarettos, quarantines, ho 
and asylums for plague-spotted patients, i: was the black wooden "rest- 
House," in Common Pasture, with its horrid charcoal sketches, said to bo 



THE DINNER. 71 

drawn upon the walls by delirious inmates, which gave body and pith to onr 
conceptions. 

Where did you learn your first lessons in botanizing? It was on that 
sultry, drowsy Saturday afternoon, when you went a " penny-royaling up to 
Common Pasture." And where did you get your first notions of mineral- 
ogy ? In knocking off serpentine and rag-stone from the walls of the 
" Devil's Den." That, too, was the spot to which our minds instinctively 
reverted, whenever we read any German tale of diablerie ; for there were 
authentic traditions connected with that heap of rocks which often made us 
shudder. There stood the Devil's Pulpit, from which it was said, he preached 
at midnight, to an infernal crew, gathered around its base ; and there was 
the name cut in the ground, past which it was reported, no .creature had ever 
returned alive. 

And when we read of the tented field, of the crash of war, of embattled 
hosts with their white tents and streaming banners, with nodding plumes 
and pealing trumpets, — where did our thoughts fasten themselves? What 
was the actual scene which rose up before our minds, and gave reality to all 
this splendid description ? It was the Fall muster on Grasshopper Plains, 
with the old gallows stretching out its wooden arm at the summit, and the 
huckleberry bushes skirting the borders of the field. 

And when you heard of sylvan retreats, of dell and dale, of lovers' walks 
and sweet retirements in the shade, could you think of anything else than 
"Bartlett's Springs," and the " Laurels?" 

When you were told of foreign lands beyond the sea, could you ever think 
of anything more remote than the mysterious and unexplored regions, which 
lay " over the river ? " There was no bridge then to bring that hazy and 
distant locality into near contact with us ; but there were solemn ferry-men 
who blew the horn at intervals from the " ferry-ways," as a signal that the 
boat was about to move. None knew where these grave men came from ; 
none knew where they slept at night, if indeed they ever slept ; but there at 
their post, they were always to be found, until the shades of evening had 
descended, and the merchant-women from " over the river," had returned 
with empty baskets, to the bosom of their anxious families. 

What can even obliterate the memory of Plum Island, and the Piers, and 
Black Bocks, and Salisbury Beach ? Can you ever forget that low, moaning 
roar of the ocean, which you used to hear in the cold winter nights ? Is there 
a Newburyport boy who cannot feel and appreciate the poetry of the sea ? 

I might go on for hours, reviving these early reminiscences, and showing 
how your character and feelings have been moulded by the scenery, the tra- 
ditions, and all the various surroundings of yonr childhood. Every thing 
with which we came in contact then, has left its mark upon us. Our thoughts 
run in the moulds that were grooved in early years. And there must have 
been something peculiar in the influences of our vencrablo mother town, to 
have produced such an asiemblage of men as are here gathered together. 



'- THE IRT CELEBRATION. 

A- we look around this day, wc involuntarily ask 
what would sfa tout Newburyport. 

St( phen Til ton, Jr., Esq., replied : 
Mb. Matob and Fellow Citizens — 
I regret exceedingly that my friends here have called upon me to respond 
mplimentary toast just given to the city of Boston I am conscious 
of my inability to do her justice, and particularly on this occaMon, when 

tny mind with the things of the past, and I 
every other thought but of Newburypoi of my boyhood. The 

i which calls us together is one of nO ordinary interest. It is a family 
gathering, the return of I !, when hands join and 

hearts speak and the soul overfli tigs of gratitude and n 

e day, which is Bure to bring up the past to the mind of every true 

f N 

combine to ban and for the time being we exi 

• of youth were unrolled 
to our view, and every object which our eyes rested upon had its ] 
association and peculiar interest; we saw the old school house and the old 
playgrounds; we looked in the faces of old m re n minded of 

the absent, and of others depar ' we heard their voi< 

thing addressed our feel.; iatibns of youth, 

feel that our nal I i he fountain of joy. 

• not even the 
house in which I was horn, more forci \ . feelings than •' 

of the old stage coach in the procession, perhaps the identical 

; my way to the old 
, in Boston. It recalled the emotions 

youth; and it reminded 
ied when with 
■line — a common school education, a lather's counsels and a i 

u the untried duties of life in a new borne surrounded 
by strarj 

Since that i eriod years have elapsed, new interests have been created and 

new connections formed ; and ing my tribute of gratitude to 

rbnryport for the education Bhe furnished to, and the Balutary influ- 

• of thrift I have observed at 1 believe, sir, were the 

questions put by you t . 

home do you love best ?— the answer would I.e. as children - 
" wc love both best." "i o, we love the home of onr : 

■ stify that tli- i siuids with extended 

e all who i thin her 

Her influence and treasury i 

tlie cities and towns of the "old Bay S 



THE DHTCTHE. 73 

which they have Furnished her, and she withholds not her gratitude to all the 
"N'ew England States for their aid ir. rendering her a good specimen of a true 
American city. 

While, sir, the interests of Boston are so closely identified with the interest'! 
-of the State, they are peculiarly so with the city of Newburypert. You have 
liberally contributed your sons to her, and they have advanced all professions 
and honored all employments ; they have reflected honor to Newburyport 
•while assisting in creating and preserving the reputation of Boston the world 
•over. Boston, then, freely awards to you your share of establishing her 
influence, which extends to every isle of the sea, and to every shore where 
where religion, education, thejust administration of law, honor and integrity 
are appreciated. Gentlemen, I close by giving the following sentiment — 

The City of Newburypert. — Her inflaeace cannot be lessened while she 
follows the example of the fathers in educating the sons. 

The Mayor in response to the compliment to Newburyport, 
said he would not occupy much more time, and instead of 
making a formal reply, would submit a few facts, which, per- 
haps, better than any remarks, convey an idea of our prosper- 
ity. He then spoke as follows : 

I will say a few words in regard to old Newburypert, for I know of no 
topic more appropriate on this occasion. And I have the pleasure to say, 
that at no time during the past thirty years, has our old town been in so 
prosperous a condition, in point of business, as she is at this present day. 
It may strike many of you as strange that I should make such a statement 
But in proof of what I would say. I should like to have you prolong your 
stay a few days, and take a course with me to the north part of the city, 
where I will introduce you to a thousand or more Intelligent, industrious and 
happy ship-carpenters, many of whom you have seen in the procession today 
— the very bone and muscle of our community— men whom we feel proud to 
claim as among our most worthy citizens — all of whom are constantly em- 
ployed, and are receiving a fair and just equivalent for their valuable ser- 
vices. 

I will also introduce you to some of the most intelligent, ingenious and 
high-minded master ship-builders that this country can boast of — men that 
would be an honor and valuable acquisition to any community. 

And as a further evidence of the prosperity of this portion of our city, I 
will show you hundreds of new and neat dwellings, built within the past few 
years, from the earnings of our worthy and industrious ship-carpenters. I 
will also state that during the present year more than twenty thousand tons of 
shipping will be built at this part of the city — scattering some million and a 
half of dollars in their csnstruction. 

After having introduced you to this portion of our citizens, I should be 

7 



74 THE NEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION. 

most happy to take you to the south part of the city, and make you 
acquainted with the hardy fishermen, who mostly reside there ; and you will 
find them an intelligent, industrious and successful people. You will find 
entirely changed from what it was thirty years ago. The whole 
face of things wears a different aspect. The streets and houses all i 

rity, brought about by the industrious habits of the people, most of 
whom are happy and contented. This part of our city and citizens we have 
!>•; son to be proud of. 

1 will then call your attention to other portions of your old home and 
ormer residence, and you will find our merchants and mechanics, in their 
various branches, doing a prosperous and healthy business. I would ask vou 
to visit our schools, all of which are in a high state of perfection. The city 
government being liberal— as they always should be with this interesting and 
important department — 1 believe we can challenge comparison with 
or town in the commonwealth. 

I would invite you to look through the whole length and breadth of our 
city, and talk with your friends and the citizens generally, and see if the 
universal opinion is not that we are ranging ahead. 

It is not proh.. ill ever become a very large city, hut I hon- 

estly believe that we are, comparatively speaking, doing as healthy and profi- 
table a business as any city or town in Massachusetts. And now, my friends, 
I will say, this is a proud day for NVwburyport, and one that will not soon 
be forgotten by us. 

When we look around and see so many of the sons and friends come at 
our call to visit the scenes of their early days, we cannot but feel deeply 
interested in this gathering. Hardly a friend that has come amongst as 
at what happiness is seen depicted in his countenance. We are all, 
thank God, happy today ; and such a family gathering as this ran produco 
no other result. My only prayer and wish is, that in this union of friends 
today, our friendships shall be so strongly cemented that nothing on earth 
shall ever sunder them. 

In conclusion the Mayor offered the following toast : 

/ / uion of these United States — It must be preserved although our l>c>t 
blood be the sacrifice. 

/'/,. City of New Font— Destined to he the Commercial Emporium of the 
world. 

Robert G. Pike, Esq., of New York, was called upon, and 

replied : 

Mit. Mayor and Fi:i i on Cl i [Zl MS — 

Called npon suddenly and unexpectedly at a late hour last evening, and 
.in j u.nily somewhat unprepared, I rise with no little diffidence to respond 
to the sentiment just offered in compliment to the New York del 
Agreeable as the duty is, I feel there are many among us who can aknowl- 



THE DIXXER. 75 

your kindness far more gracefully, and who can do more complete justice to 
the sentiments which I know animate each one of us on this happy occasion. 
And then too, what can I fay which has not already been most eloquently 
said? Our only thoughts today are our country and our home — and what 
words are holier, what words arc dearer to every one of us than these ' 
What can awaken more pleasing reflections, or kindle more earnest aspira- 
tion^ ' Yes, the same mingled emotions of joy and pride animate us all 
alike today ; and as kindred sentiments beget kindred words, the same 
expressions, ere we know it, are leaping from our lips which but a moment 
before were ringing in our ears. 

But, Mr. Mayor, I will not sit down without thanking you for this glorious 
reception. When your summons reached us in New York wc hailed it with 
delight — our hearts beat warm at the very thought of coming home again— to 
our boyhood's home ! where we first tasted the sweet pleasures of existence — 
where our life plans had their beginning, and our ambition first plumed its 
wing. To come home, not alone, but with all the truants and wanderers of 
the family — to grasp the hands of old friends, companions and schoolmasters 
— to visit once more together the old haunts and play-places of youth, 

'• to memory so dear, 

All rich with events of life's early career." 
To gather around us once more old familiar faces, to go back as it were, and 
with all our old mates to become boys again — to recall, and talk over the 
hopes and aspirations of youth with which we started in life together — to 
visit the old brick school-house, to sit down upon its steps, to loiter upon the 
green banks around it— to linger by the shores of old frog pond — frog pond 
that fills so large, so bright a space in our boyhood's history — to sit beneath 
the old echo tree, and to muse on those by-gone days whose memory is like 
the dying cadence of some sad, sweet tune. Yes, we wanted to see all the 
school-boys of our day, the ''upper 'longers," and the " downer 'longers," as 
we used to call them — the boys that whipped us and the boys that we 
whipped — we wished to see him who stood first in school, and inquire if he 
maintained that position in the world — we wished to gaze on faces that we 
remembered only fresh and fair in the bloom of youth, cunons to see how 
they looked as men. These and a thousand other kindred thoughts crowded 
upon us and made us impatient for the gathering. 

I r. Mayor, we were right glad to come home to the old town and 
meet our old townsmen. I say " town and townsmen," for these. sound more 
homelike and grateful to the ear. I do not forget you have become a city — 
nay, I am proud of it, I rejoice at it. Newburyport boys have no oilier 
feeling than that of pride and love for the old town. I repeat, sir, I am 
proud to sit her a city ; renewing again her old strength and glory. It is 
good to see her factories multiplying — her ship yards crowded — her machine 
shops like bee hives. While these speak of the industry and thrift of her 
people ; her new churches and school houses springing up on every side tell 
of still higher and holier purposes and aims. They tell of the promulgation 



76 • THE NEWBUKYPORT CELEBRATION. 

of intelligence, morality and religion to all alike ; leaving no soul unca;< 
no talents undeveloped. Yon and I can remember the time when a deep 
slumber rested upon her for years, from which she seemingly never would 
awaken. Time was, when it seemed as if the patron-God of the merchant 
had frowned upon the place — as if in his anger he had anon her 

wharves, and with his serpent-twined wand had locked np all her store- 
houses, closed all her avenues < it md tamed his back upon the 
place forever. No more business was done than barely sufliccd to keep the 
people alive. Mechanics sought employment elsewhere— the young b 
and hastened to the larger towns and cities — gross upon the wharves and in 
the streets, and wherever yon tamed tare I \ou in the 
face. But, thanks to God ! a change has come over the spirit of her long 
dream — her lethargy has passed, and she has once more taken up her march 
on the high road of improvement — and the voices of her laborers, the clang 
of her workshops, the busy ham of her machinery, seem to mingle together 
in the harmonious song of progress and prosperity . 

And do we not see a providence in all this ' Her young men whose enter- 
prising spirit for so many years led them truants from lioine.carried with them 
energy, industry nd talent — and what was the town's loss was our whole, 
country's gain ; for wherever they went they carried with them the g 
they had garnered here at home ; and by their wholesome influence, their 
example and teaching, they have contributed no little to the advancement and 
prosperity of their adopted homes, It is not boasting to say that Xewbury- 
port boys are always first and foremost in their calling ; wherever they wander 
they arc sure to make their mark, and that U>o a broad and bright one. I 
need not mention the names of her clergymen, her po men, her 

lawyers and physicians, which are familiar to us all, and a bright constel 
lation of whom arc now gathered within the sound of my voice ; but I will 
Bimply allude to New York as an illustration of what I have asserted. 

li i estimated that there are about three hundred persons, natives 
buryport, now resident in New York. Of this small number we can point to 
that venerable son of a noble sire, the llcv. Gardner Spring, who stands first 
.Hilling the clergy of his denomination — to the Bey. Dr. Tyng the acknow] 
i:c! of the Episi 0| Hales, whose talents, industry 

and integrity, have founded cm st and most successful .Mutual 

Insurance Companies iii the world — to X. Bon Esq., the present 

efficient District Attorn. ij ol x ew x . i ■'-■■ ' Little the Vtpoleon of 

Wall street — to School' the artis actions are unrivalled— to Ease 

the machinist whose invi ntiona rani I 

linemen — and last, but not lee I to that ; < landlords, Charles A 

Stetson, Ksq, Mr Mayor, have I not named enough to satisfy yon that the 
sons of Ni v, buryporl make n lows 

Once m or, I thank you in behalf of the New % . 

for the handsome manner we have bi n ntertained. We can never forget 
2iis day. We shall go home with hearts crowded with pll a.~aut memories — 



THE DIXNEU. ■ 77 

and if possible shill entertain more affection for the good old town, and the 

good old stock she has prod! I. than ever — we >hM go hack confident that 

although much - ad talent has heen scattered broadcast through 

the land, there eft yet, to keep np the old stock, and to pre- 

serve unsullied, unimpaired, her ancient glory and renown. 

— Guided by wisdom and true patriotism, powerful 
engii es in aid of a nation's prosperity — in the hands of unprincipled dema- 
gogues, infernal machines. 

D. N. Haskell, Esq., editor of the Boston Transcript, 
responded. 

The sentiment that I am called to respond to, expresses the idea which it 
contains, in language that has tb a cannon-hall. It aii 

for good or for evil. The Pen 
has been called the silent month-piece of the mind, which gives ubiquity and 
permanence to the evanescent thought of a moment. The Press is tie- 
steam- -limine of moral power in an in nuiiity; and the liberty 
of the press is the true measure of all other liberty ; for all freedom without 
this must he merely nominal. I lar circum , " 

of the Sons of Newbnryport, resident in Boston, are connected with 
the press in various ways than are to be found in any other department of 
business. One of the number > „ paper, another a daily 

evening paper, a third one of the weeklies, besides others that are proprietors, 
reporters, amateur writers, or printers. Not to mention others still, whose 
ancestry resided here, or thosi come to rbnryport to visit 

tdmother on their mother's side. 
When Isaiah Thomas, with whose name the press in this country is so 
closely identified, came to Newhuryport some eighty years ago, to start ' Tha 
I mrnal and Merrimack Packet, and Xew Hampshire General Adver- 
tiser,' he made an address to the citizens, whii : lie first article 
in the first number. Allow me to quote a sentence from this address, which 
states was printed 'op] te the R ■-.-. Mr. Parsons' Meeting-House.' 
It reads thus : ' Many respectable Gentlemen, Friends to Literature, having 
expressed their earnest desire that a printing-office might be established in 
alous town, the inhabitants in general being sensible of the great 
want thereof, and the patronage and assistance they have kindly promised to 
give, ha^ te to procure the necessary apparatus for carrying on 
the printing business, and opening here, and animates me to hope that every 
pirited gentleman in this and the places adjacent, will promote so 
useful an undertaking.' 

The public spirited gentlemen of Ncwburyport responded to this appeal, 
and the printer was sustained. It may he of interest for me to state a fact 
furnished by my esteemed friend, the editor of the Newbnryport Herald, that 
the editors of no less than ten i 'lie United States are graduates 

from the Herald office. These persons, with others who have graduated at 

7* 



78 Till: NEWB1 RYl'i'RT CELEBRATION. 

your common schools, arc scattered over the Union, and connected" with the- 
press, from Bangor on the east, to San Francisco on the west ; from New 
Orleans on the south, to Oregon on the North. If they heed the 1< 
their youth, and are true to the principles of their fathers, they guide both 
Pen and Press by wisdom and true patriotism, and make them powerful 
engines in aid of the prosperity of the m 

The Pen and the Press ! Who can estimate the fall extent of their power,. 
or take the exacl guage of their influence ! The great gathering of this day 
anil hour illustrates the power of the press, as by its agency these ism 

■ nitry. Anil th - 
[ubilee, this ,„.«■ method of j >ining to the ordinary celebration o!' Rational 
Independence, the novel feature of a home festival — thus adding much of the 
peculiar glory of Thanksgiving day to old John Adams's :;nis_v mode of 
celebrating the Fourth of Jul}— this is a new and striking illustration of the 
potency of the press, lor it is the invention of a printer, and was ■ , 
in the fertile brain of the fertile and genial man who indites the quaint savings 
and tills the snuff box of the widow Kuth Partington 

The allusion in the sentiment to ' Infernal Machines,' remind* me of the 
effect of modem machinery in a printing office. It lias fairly driven out that 
personage formerly known as tin- • printer's Devil. ' His occupation if 
and those familliar with the phrasi s of the craft will understand mi 
state, that since as banished from the press-room, those two 

annoyences, ' Monks and Friars.' have rarely made i 1 on the 

sheets. If, therefore, those connected with the press show any indication 
that his Satanic majestj vet exerts an influence over them, it mu-t be attrib- 
uted to external agencies, and probably arises from the immense <;e. 
worthless contril ■ t them in bad grammar, and others tilled with 

malignant personalities, which they receive continual! have the 

effect predicted by th • Apostle, when he said that 

Let us hope that those who arc connected by the Pen to the Pros, may be 

guided by 'wisdom and troc patriotism '— that the hands of unprincipled 

nes' may never, in New I n rt this powerful 

: : us trust that all the Sons of Newbury- 

port, Hut shall bear the labors, honor- ami responsibilities which belong to 

[ positioi rious ■ . wrirtei 

more than half a centurj ago for the Salem Register, by tin lal 

Story ' 

the People's Rights maintain, 
11 Gain: 

draw. 
: Law." 

li now appears that your city is soon to have a Public Li 

it a new influence upon your citizens. 

Hooks have been 



THE DINNER. 7'.' 

lating library pronounced " an evergreen tree of knowledge, which blossom? 
nil the year." Allow me, Mr. Mayor, to congratulate you upon the fine 
auspices which this public institution now enjoys, and to express thi 
that its permanent establishment will be commenced under yonr administration 
The Pen and the Press can only have influence where the community is 
educated. As men rise in the social scale, and mental culture becomes 
universal, the printed word has added power, and he influence of the writer 
is increased. If a speaker addresses a thousand persons, he is Baid to 
large audience ; but the editor, whose words g'> to thousands of homes, and 

ns of thousands of individuals, what a powerful engine does he 
wield, and when a man or woman wiites a book, to what a throng of persons- 
do they appeal ! 

My former relations to the honored Chairman of the Boston del 
when I was his pupil in the town school here, during the time that be had 
for his assistant our absent friend, 1 mean the lion Albert Pike of Arkansas, 
together with the suggestions made to the mind bj the si ntiment to which I 
am responding, and the cherished associations of my boyhood, in connection 
with so many of these familiar faces that no* n heremem. 

brance of others whose memories are inscribed in marble in yonder cemetery, 
these things unite in inducing me to close my remarks with an allusion to the 
common schools of New England. The theme is an old one, but it is 
seemingly inexhaustible. In the establishmenl non Ichool, the 

fathers of New England atoned for ihojr short-coming in many respects. The 
hoy who has gone abroad from your town to seek bis fortune, and to attain a 
position in society, if he took with him I :r public school s 

afforded, had a passport which would admit him to any station requiring 
knowled i nee ; and he was already on the high road to honorable 

place among his fellow-citizens. Sir. it must have been -ratifying to the 
gentleman who has so eloquently and felicitoo d here in behalf 

Of the returning Sons, to have his former pupil- selei t him as their o 
this occasion; and sir, last night at early evening, had you been in yonder 
cemetery, you would have seen many pilgrims to the grave of the lamented 
1'a..i , who turned from that monument, "erected by his pupils," with feelings 
of respect to the honored memory of their early friend and teacher 1.1 

ion, allow me to oiler as a sentiment, 

iai institution ' of our 
i educational eysti m by addii 
a ults to public schools for child] 



Edward Ii. Braiuard, Esq . of Bo: ton, v>a3 called upon, who 
gave an off-hand speech, whii h we feel is doing injustice to the 
speaker to attempt to report. It Deeds his voice and manner 
to give to each sentence that point and force 



80 TIIE NEWBTJRYPORT CELEBRATION. 

action. However, ashing his indulgence, we have ventured 
to give it in substance : 

Me. MAYOR — 

After listening with great pleasure to the able and eloquent remarl;s of the 

I me, and who have covered every point of 

tiled npon to address yon, fearing that 

anything I can say, will be like 1 ol those cent fifes with which 

unearthly strain-, upi 
lebrate; bat the interest I feel in 
that relates to the home of my boyhood, must be my apology for 
tifing on this occasion. 

'ins bright and joyous ; hut arriving in town yester- 
so few familiar faces, and when later in company of a friend 
we wandered among the graves of our ancestors and read so many of the 
memorials of those we once knew and honored, I could but exclaim, "It is 
here that we find our friends ;" and amid the - -rending 

snn across their graves, I I had not some magic pow ! 

r you, that the light of their count 
i the recollection of their virtues and peculiar! 
The men of this place who were the companions of our grandmoth rs, 
i . individuality which bor •• — their 

.-•n, indicating their occupation; thus, the n 
* looked like ministers, wei [ike mill- 

but ministers, and had thoso 
s which caused the cloth to be held in bo ms 
years gone by. 

You remember one of this profession whose hes; portrait is found in those 
died books, (in hotels and drinking houses, although i; 
hoped that the rising generation do nut read such literature) which are pub- 
lished i I j ose the town must be named for the man 
with who has Doodcd the world ; at any rate the name of the 

phiz by a skillful 

i less correct 

. rhomoa 

nni!ar, yel < lole omits 

i buckles which the Crehorean artist retains. 

Mr. ,\! ■ i ... i this moral city, 

for one to trate ever played cards, but if you 

ned in job 

. h 

him still," with his broad brimmed hat, his 

cut awe ied waistcoat, which allowed in warm days a 

i protrude in the form, and for the same purpose of a v, ntilator 

nent in a hot day.) with his fist in the gills of a main 



Tin: DINNER. 81 

moth cod whose tail dragged in the dust, and whose weight caused him to 
linger on his way to crack jokes and spin yams. 

All who knew him will hear witness to his ready wit and genial spirit, hie 
earnest eloquence, his zealous patriotism, his patience under trials, his warm 
sympathies and catholic liberality of opinion which thought a man might 
reach heaven without going through his church, and lastly, to his stentorian 
voice and independence of manner. 

'• We ne'er Bhali see bis like e 

Another member of the same profession was remarkable for his gentle- 
manly deportment and polite address, which caused him to be respected bj 
all, though differing with him in theological opinions, of whom it is 
that, when a Scabrook clam merchant gave him a Bpnrious coin, returned i: 
with the request, •' I shall be very much obliged to yon, sir, if you will give 
me a four pence ha'penny upon which the pillars are a liitle more legible." 

Ineed hardly advert to the venerable clergyman, (Dr. Dana) who ^i•. 
near you, and to whom so frequent allusion has been made to-day, except to 
state that he once told me I was a good boy, and I have always enl 
a high opinion of his penetration ; but there is one who is still pet I 
active duty, whose originality of though; an less of expression, com- 

mend him to all lovers of back bun:. I well remember that, 
I was put into jacket and trowsers, of attending his church in company with 
an elder brother, and in his sermou that evening, he alluded instrong terms to 
the absence of the young married ladies from the servi 
and although then unaware of his meaning, I have since very rein 
concluded, that there were some in his parish who were not worthy sm 
of Joseph or Susannah. 

There was the sexton of the same parish, that " old, grey-headed chron- 
icle," whose familiarities with death seemed to give him a lease of life, un- 
willing to relinquish his post after fifty years sin ice, whose prodigious "beak" 
resembled the figure-head of a clipper ship, showing up the man as a light- 
honse does the coast, creating a I at a greater distance than him- 

self, and rendering him but an append 

Another 'sexton of the old school" whose out-works resembled his just 
mentioned, though upon a smaller scale, was remarkable among the boys for 
bis enmity to the mechanical operations which were wont to bo carried on 
during service, in the pews and seats in the n B lo »ing up 

the young artizans with an unsleeping vigilance, and i tparative- 

ly insecure the office of Reed I le tythingman, who with his long pole poised 
in majesty before him, dozed the hours away, and lei the 

1 visited, this morning, my first and last school-teachers, the former a ven- 
erable lady who is still engaged, enriched with the results of fortj four yeari 
experience, in teaching the young ideas how to fire at B. 0. and A. 15. At 
the latter, the honorable gentleman who sits In hind I praise is 

in the mouths of all who were benefitted by his instructions, but whom we 
do not think of so feelingly as we have reason to of another who taug> 



82 THE NEWBURYPOBT CELEBRATION. 

at the south part of the (then) town, a part of whose system of instruction 
carried with it great weight. His mode of getting wit in, was similar to that 
of getting a cork out of a champagne bottle, which all who are not temper- 
ance men are aware, is by thumping on the bottom — of the bottle, conse- 
quently all his scholars remembered him feelingly when they sat down. — 
Physically, this mode of instruction had its advantages, enabling the recip- 
ient to despise the use of cushions, and to ride without a saddle. Notwith- 
standing the great love of learning and other things which this te. 
played, he had a kind heart. 

Another pedagogue who was located in another part of the town, practised 
a milder and peculiar mode of disciplin merely in placing his 

finger to his nose, which act was construed as meaning, that, if the boys did 
ive, they would smell something, but the scent was never ascertained. 
ther, long since dead, whose most terrible punishment con- 
sisted in sending the offender to borrow Master Wildes' ferule. 

1 might here allude, in connection with these men of literary labors, to 
those poets whose names have not been blazoned on the record of fame, but 
ready wit and local alio orded a fund of amusement to the 

juveniles. ( tne a pump and block maker, who could make a rhyme when he 
had — occasion, His works are so familiar to you that 1 need not quote from 
them, hut pass on to the author of those beautiful lines, the scene of which ii 
laid by the sea-side, where they catch fish and dig clams. 
"Joppo for a little place. 
I thin: ■<: my, 

: T. With her three sons, 
Bi ... 

Cheney, 'tis said, has got some skill 

, tame; 
lint a!; ' 

worthy of the name. 

One of tie- sons as I am 

The least said about this poet tie- better. Bui there was another one who 
lived down in Water street, who evinced decidt d talent — the author of 

in must know, 
: :\ botheration; 
i to £ 

A pedlar came imo, ' 

With joyful heart, lie Bet bis cart 
Just opposite the doo 

I have also in my pocket some lines alluding to the truckmen, written by 
one whom I hope is here to day, of etiual merit to those already read ; and I 



TIIE DINNER. 83 

sm reminded by them of the Kczers, Curriers, Beam, Qilmans, Pages and 
laqtu s of that occupation, nil of whom were willing to give a boy a ride on 
the tail of tlieir trucks, but I particularly remember with pleasure a kind- 
hearted man who drove the horse "Labrador," whose potato 
•vlun, in stormy weather we wi arry our dinners to school. As 

I passed by his house last night, I involuntarily doffed my hat in rcmem- 
i the roast potatoes, and regretted that he were not -till living that I 
might tii;. 11k Mm in person. 

Near the same locality, (Guinea) lived the race of colored men now nearly 
extinct, whose little darkeys used to show us the white of their eyes and teeth, 
and when children of larger growth attended the public schools, one Ol 
sat by my side, whose success in after life has demonstrated the fact, thru a 
black skin is not always "fatal." There was "Uncle Tite Pickering" too, 
who owned a prodigious bull's eye watch that went when it was carried, and 
whose big peepers, which were a match in size with the old chronometer, 
used to be about, lest some urchin whose cow was the other side Jordan, 
should take one of the male cows from the pen, to ride after her — these ani- 
mals from training beiDg very docile, made very comfortable if not speedy 
nags — a ride being desirable not only for ease, but as a means of avoiding 
the blood suckers in the slough, who held on like a curb stone broker and 
Stretch a couple of yards or so before they would give up. 

Who does not remember those old maids who sold cocoa nut and tamarinds 
by the cent's worth, and long sticks of candy with nubs, the size of a decent 
fist, so large indeed that it was a matter of doubt whether they bought the 
molasses or got it somewhere else; and also those ancient dames who brought 
berries and herbs from Dogtown, driving twenty-shilling nags that were never 
known to trot. 

Time would fail should I allude at length to the inhabitants of Oldtown, 
West Newbury, Pilfershire, Salisbury and Seabrook, whose locality was as 
well known by their looks as a Jersey man by the mud on his hoots. You 
remember all about them, and even in our own town such were the marked 
characteristics of families and localities that one could seem to designate the 
locality and name of an individual by his personal appearance. Thus, do 
you see that man standing against the post in front of me ; he is unknown to 

me, but I feel sure his name is P , because he has a strong 1 J look. 

He laughs ; — I am right, and I think I could designate many more in tbo 
same manner. 

But I fear I am wearying your patience, and in conclusion would express 
a heartfelt and abiding interest in all that concerns the welfare and prosperity 
of our old mother, Newbnryport, and 1 but reiterate the sentiments of every 
loyal son of her when I say, that whatever of worldly prosperity, whatever of 
social, political, moral or religious influence we may have acquired, is owing 
to the intellectual, moral and social advantages which she conferred upon us ; 
and we rejoice that the area of these good deeds of hers is now expanded ; 
we do not want her fenced in as docs the Reverend gentleman from Bangor, 



Si THE NEWBTJRYPOBT CELEBKATION. 

having no fear that her virtue is in danger, but that she is able to counteract 
s upon it, and that when her arms embrace these children of her 
adoption she is able to bestow upon them the same nursing care and the same 
inestimable privileges for which re to-day to thank her. 

Allusions have been male relative to the importance of the preservation of 
the Union of the United States and believing that love of freedom, and not 
slavery, reverence for the laws of God as revealed in his word, love of order, 
and obedience to constitutional enactments, form the cement of the Union, and 
that not clam shells and tar, but a mutual regard for the rights of each section 
of this new city, and above all. that the stern regard for the great principles 
of morals, religion, and intellectual culture, which actuated our fathi i 
constitute the bond of union between this old . Ijacent parishes, 

and give her such prosperity and influence among the citi 

land, that every son filled with enthusiasm at the mention of her name and 
i.r to himself with pride, and say — 

" This man was born in her." 
I give you, therefore — 

eville — Their Union, it must be preserved. 

Philip K. Hills;, Esq. was called upon, but declined speaking, 
and offered the following sentiment: 

not better compliment the fathers than by becoming 
such. They cannot tind better material tor mothers than among the 
daughters. 

1/ -Her enti rpria has not i shao ■'. her • soun es, 

John S. Sayward, Esq. editor of the Bangor Whig and 
Courier, responded to this sentimenl : 

Mi: M IVOR — 

The lateness of the hour, the numerous eloquent addresses to which you 
have listened with so much pleasure, and the hard ta-ks which the prolonged 
atul exhausting services of the day have imposed upon yon, cause me to feel 
greatly embarrassed in responding to the sentiment lor my adopted State, and 
in whose honor and welfare 1 feel a deep and abiding interest. Your have 
listened to day to the orator- of whom you are so justly proud— men of high 
culture in your public institutions of learning, and whose words pass any 

when cut I claim no : mor and confidence, hut 

must submit every thought to be weighed in the balan sa for only 

what the test may prove it to !"■ worm. 1 represent the o 
those whose lot '1st the difficulties and discouragements of 

poverty, and whom a private, and 1 may almost say. a public necessity, made 

iv that they should leave tin b : family and town, and 

go forth to labor with their bend- in the battle and straggle of life. But 1 



THE DINNER. 85 

feci a lively interest in the State of Maine, and sine: your partiality has 
solicited mc from among more gifted sons of ik in her 

behalf, I will trust to the heart to answer, where the head may fail to 
suggest. 

Your sentiment, sir, is right, in saving that the enterprise of the citizens of 
Maine has not exhausted her resources Indeed, bo far from this i- tl 
thai ii may iii troth be said, that the great natural i 
capabilities of the State, in their abnnd to 

enterprise ' Id lul, industrious 

and sagacious men of other States and Communities. Maine has a treasure 

of natural wealth upon the surface of her soil, at ssible by numerous and 

noble rivers and streams and lakes ; while her mineral and other resources of 
art and commerce are thickly scattered over the State, and their n 
has hut just commenced. 

lias stood, and still stands, with open arms to give a cordial greeting 
to citizens of other States. She has selected many able men in all the 
departments of learning, and given them honorable employment, and thus 
received them as her own citizens. Among these, of men who are an honor 
■So the professions and to the race, may he found many sons of Newburyport. 

Our orator to-day, while dwelling with so much eloquence and force upon 
the men and the influence which Newburyport has sent out into the world, 
referred to I m 1 and educational elements which early brought into 
activity by our fathers, and which all along have marked the path of her 
history. There has long been a potent influence exerted in the family circle 
and at the domestic hearth-stone. It has ever been a part of the social life 
and home religion of Newburyport mothers to implant in the minds and 
hearts of their sons and their daughters the principles of honor, sobriety and 
chastity, and to furnish them with motives of an honorable amhition to make 
their mark in the world, and to feel that upon their conduct, in some measure, 
honor of the place of their birth and the homes of their childhood 
and youth. 

This home culture in moral principles and in personal honor and ambition, 

has been met with a new and corresponding force, in the excellent character 

'iesof the public schools. These schools have long since, brought 

honor to the town, and been esteemed as among her rarest and richest gems. 

However adverse may have been the general social state of the people, the 

of the public schools has been eminently and uniformly in favor of 

I, original equality among mankind. 

Under these circumstances many sons of Newburyport have been sent 

forth from the humhlest dwellings of the poor, with no treasures for a 

reliance hut the treasures of mind, with a discipline already began, a heart 

unstained with love of evil, a mothers faithful teachings and prayers, and the 

Bible tied in the bundle containing the wardrobe. They have gone out into 

the world to meet its battle and its strife, nerved most strongly in the severest 

conflicts, with the thought that a fond motner at home might be gladdened 



8b THE NEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION. 

with their success, or pained at their defeat, or die at their disgrace. And 
wherever Newburyport boys have thus pone, they have made their mark, and 
acquired a good name, and exerted a good influence. They havi 
often amidst discouragements and difficulties, and found it hard ti 
where others, from superior advantages, could easily run ; but nerved to the 
purpose and mntivc so often and m strongly impressed upon Newburyport 
„,v; to be si mething, whatever their calling and however hard the conditions, 

:Miing an influence— generally 
a good influence— among men, and sometimes to cause their deeds to be 
honorably known beyond the limits of tlieir acquaintances, and their good 
name to be cherished in their old town, by those who had never seen them. 
There is something hopeful and cheering in this to the young men of our 
•sed to be a necessity for a man to be a warrior or connected 
ions in order to distinguish himself. The world is full o' 
want, and every true hearted man my serve a use among men. The demand 
is more and more for the practical men, they of the directing head and the 
skilful hand. For the reliable shipbuilder, the able mechanic, the il 
workman in all branches of labor and art, the capital of the world is 

men most needed ; and the activities of the world in material 
and mechanical contrivances — in the union of science and art, will c: 
demand to increase, and the reward enlarged, until the engineer shall become 
the hero of the no: distant future of our country and our age, am' 
the richest material reward, because requiring the largest abilities. There is 
a brigh; b future, to the poor boys of Newburyport and of the 

country, in the present shaping of the public mind. The intelligent laborer, 
with a head enlightened made skilful by art. - 

now, and will still less in the future, be compelled to knei I 
capital to be furn rk, for capital ni i h men, 

and is glad when it ha ir services on terms of an cnuitablo 

of the profits. 
The boys, then, that are now in the ship-yards and mi chanic shops, in the 
mills, and on boat the encouragement offered them to 

eir energies for the new condition of things. Labor has at 
come to be honored in our country, a i I 

equality and to rei engaged in ]■< i 

the highest uses to mankind. 

Did time admit, and your patience allow, I should be glad to lead you 

forward to a special contemplation of the probable unfoldings of the future; 

i close. 

\ id however may be due to the State o£ i d by the 

■ i In atlj a working Si 

a population enlightened, moral and patriotic, ller great interests are 

intimate; I th the peace, welfare, and prosperity of the whole 

countn , : ngs, her opinions and actions, are a fact and 

j of the whole people ; at least the industrial and business people 



TBS DINNER. 87 

of the free States, and of that prophetic and hopeful future to the individual 
sons of toil. Hit position to-day, and the progress of her people prophesy 
and prove that in the not distant future, the hod carrier and the ship-owner — 
the mechanic and the professional man — the clam digger and the merchant, 
and men of all colors and professions -the lowly and the lofty, shall meet in 
fraternal intercourse, united by a common bond of equality, and enjoying 
the blessings of a common culture, and animated by the same hopes, and 
seeking the same great ends — the uplifting and improvement of the race. I 
. i abiding confidence in the future for man, for labor and for my 
country. But my hopes for the success of my country in her. as yet, experi- 
ment for promoting liberty, and for her progress and her j_'lory, is not in the 
fact that reckless and ambitious men may try their hazardous experiments 
upon her honor and strength, or in changing her general direction towards 
the point of freedom, but rather in the intelligence, right-heartedness, and 
ii of the masses of the people, who having only honest ends to 
lish, shall labor to es- ■rnment upon the everlasting 

foundations of right, of truth, and moral principles, and who, when bad men 
attempt experiments of evil, sb their inmost souls that the evil 

shall be overcome by good— by their own resolve to do and to determine 
what shall be done. 

Old N< 

Joshua Coffin, Esq., of Newbury, spoke in substance as fol- 
lows : 
Mr.. Prusidcnt — 

On an occasion like the present, when memory with its reminiscences 

and the heart with its affections are laboring for utterance, it is exceedingly 

ditli alt, nay impossible to select what is appropriate, and condense it into a 

ly narrow compass. The poet, who was required to express his 

sentiments 

u In t v tes, rich, luscious, juicy, sweet, 

could not possibly have succeeded, had his theme been " Old Newbury." — 
He would have said in the language of Scotland's favorite bard, 

■v that name in | 
My woi ! 

tuneful Nine, 

o'er my pen." 

He would have needed the power to conij I of matter in a 

drop of words. But what can I do, who have not that power? I find my- 

self somewhat in tin- situation of tin- ipwrighl who built the 

frigate Alliance, in the Revolutionary war. Ou reviewing a treatise that ha 



SO THE HEWBTJRYPORT CELEBRATIO.V. 

had written on naval architecture he was so dissatisfied with the work ihas 
he tore out leaf after leaf till nothing was left bat the index. That, gentle- 
men, is just my case 1 have nothing left but the index, and I can give you 
only an abstract of that. But what is there in Old Newbury that is so sug- 
gestive and inspiring i It is the place of oar nativity. of our 
boyish days, and is asso oar earliest recollections. In one word, 
which is the most comprehensive in any language, it is or was our ' 
Of this brigl . spot than all the rest, all of us who have ever left it 
can say 

whatever lauds I see, 
ravelled fondly turns to tl 
There arc oti ten our love of home. We are 

descended from an ancestry of whose names and deeds we are not a 
who have left behind them enduring memorials of tot III ir forti- 

tude and their mora! worth; and we are this day assembled to 
homage to the memory of those who in the times that tried men's souls, 
either in the struggles of their colonial dependence or in the later days of th< 
Revolution, w( re tried and no) fo I When in addition to all these 

considerations, we add that some of the most beautiful scenery to be found 
anywhere, is within the Hints of Old Newbury, who can wonder at oui- 
peculiar love Of home ! Good oh! Judge Sewall, who spent his early days in 
Newbury, till he removed, as many of those whom I se9 around 
done for a wider sphere of usefulness, in Boston, wdio was a diligent student 
oftheproph niie-n that the millennium would com- 

mence somewhere in the vicinity of Old To I used 

to think such an opinion a strange one, hut I should not now so much won- 
der if after all the old gentleman was correct. His father was or.' 
founders and Si rbury, who were a remarkabli 

men, of great mental and physical energy; of a faith that would remove 

mountains, and ling to their belief; and however the 

winds might blow or the storm heat on their di 

guage of Cromwell, put their trusl in Sod and kept their powder dry. And 
while Milton, and Sydn II, and Banyan, and Hampd 

battling I re doing in another form an 

equally ■ 

England. Thai ra broadcast in 
Old Newbury, wi 

what now is. W > : i"w 01. 

thorn bushes, nor figs on Canad the ninety one grante a of this 

indent and bean I its character and who 

shap d its destii ad and write Tiny therefore 

felt themselves competent to judge forth mselves, an 1 the Bible 

and the Bi 1 1 onlj was ay with 

one dash, of the pi lay from their calendar with th 



TIIK DINNER. 89 

the Sabbath, which was to them emphatically a holy day, a day of sacred 
rest, an entire cessation from sport as well as labor. Everything that looked 
like popery was to them an abomination, and things in themselves trilling 
became important in connection with other things. Thus, for instance, long 
hair was not to be endured. It was mentioned in wills: laws were enacted 
against wearing the hair in the manner of ruffians and barbarous Indians ; and 
in one of the town records of this county wc find this record : " Samuel 
Getchell is lined £10 for building a house on the town land without 
permission, but " in case" he cut off the Ions hair of his head into a civil 
frame he is to be forgiven £5, and in the meantime he may go on with bis 
house." These, however, were trifles in comparison with the great and varied 
excellencies of their character. A single instance of the firmness and decision 
as well as the gentleness of their character, deserves honorable mention, and 
with this I conclude. 

Having arrived on the banks of the river Qaascacnnqnen, they assembled 
under the spreading branches of a majestic oak, .ind having entered into cov- 
enant with each other, and then chose the Rev. Thomas Parker to be their 
ruling elder; after hearing an exposition of his views in respect to church 
government, they entered into a solemn covenant and compact with Messrs 
l'arker and Nnves to be their teacher and pastor. Believing that every church 
had a right to choose their own spiritual guides, it follows as an absolute 
necessity, that every man should know how to read the Bible. They had no 
faith in the dogma that " ignorance is the mother of devotion, and that the 
efficacy of laws depended on their not being understood." Free schools, 
therefore, have been everywhere established, and are the pride and glory of 
New England. Our fathers chose their spiritual guides somewhat after the 
manner of the ancient Spartans in choosing their rulers. "We that areas 
good as you, choose you to be our king ; if yon use us well, we will use you 
well ; and ifnot, not." One of these " nots," which can neither be untied nor 
cut, was made by Mr Parker in about ten years after his settlement, by a 
change of views respecting church government. They adhered to the original 
compact, that he should be primal interpares. He, on the other hand, was 
determined To be primas. Both parties were unyielding and uncompromising. 
The word compromise was not in their vocabulary. The church accordingly 
wrote him a letter, in which among other things they say, " we are enforced, 
though with great grief of heart, to suspend yon from acting anything that 
doth appertain to your office, — and in the mean time, as a ' gifted brother,' 
you may preach for the edification of the church, if you please." II was 
b, and they were pleased to hear, regularly attended public 
worship for twenty-live ; ularly paid him his salary, held him m 

high esteem, and after his death ordered the river Quascacunquen to be called 
the river Parker, in remembrance of the worthy, learned and reverend Mr. 
Thomas Parker. Here was a remarkable instance of mildness and firmness, 
which, unless I greatly mistake, has been one of the predominant traits in the 
character of their descendant-', to tie present day. The next " not " which 

8' 



90 THE NEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION. 

came in their way, was the usurpation of Andres, which they untied h? 
ad sending him to England. The last "not" was a gordian one,. 
whole country distinctly intimated their purpose to cut on July 4ih, 
1776 On i insequence of this declaration, is the pre* 

have come once more to visit the homes of their childhood, and do honor tc- 
the memory of their fathers. In the name, therefore, of old N 
ail the associations that cluster around that time-honored nan 

, to this green oasis in the world-wide wilderness. I close 
i [intent : 

interest 
now and forever, one and insepai 

Rev. Paul Couch, of North Bridgewater, Mass., was next 
called upon and spoke as follows: 
Mb. Mayob — 

Indulge mc one moment. Forty years ago I attended the pub! 
kept by Dea. Long, or as we callod him, Master Long. One of tbi 
usagesof the eccentric disi ' I into a com 

mittee of vigilance, under the general instruction " to seize a talker, 
Now I do not intend at this late hour to incur the risk of being seized as a t.;lker 
but I wish, in the briefest manner, to give utterance to feelings which it is 
ppress, at this time and in this place. 

Your note of invitation to the sons and daughters of Newburypi 
tered to the four winds, to come bom? to a family festival on the fourth of 
July, 1 read with gladness of boyhood revived, and in the fuh 
recollections, and gushing feel in . will go up to thai 

my strongest desire- was that of ascertaining what meaniugyou won 
the fourth of July ; to learn by observation and sjmp • 
you would give to the declaration of i 
ominous hour Newburyport was- right 

Within ilii Brat two hours after my arrival, b 
an old acquaintance, to allude to the subject which just now takes the lead 
of all others, I was confounded, saddened, (no hear the 

1 • of Congress, ation of public i 

honor, and opens wide territories to the 

i by a majority of your citizens. I the so; 

iflbeli 1 n . • I sl, 0U l(J ta l ;c the . ; lie off. 

[ did not believe the words of my frici , I < 
in meaning, though not in design, an aspersion on the fair fan 
town. 

I do not, 1 cannot believe such words. V. 
forced upon me, I would turn in id, the 

jes, and trials and hop 
my parents, (seeking other dust to cover mine) and in deepest sorrow and 



THF, DINNER. '.'1 

solemnity of spirit, I would go forth from your :rom ray 

feet as :i ast miii. lint, Mr. Mayor, thut cannot be; Not 

buryp irt, true to herself, will he steadfast in delenee of freedom, justice and 
humanity. 



The following speeches were prepared for the occasion, 

10 wore to represent various delegations and bodies, 

lateness of the hour prevented the reading of the reg- 

. in response to nen were to sneak. 

By pari the Committee on Publication, those 

gentlemen have kindly furnished us with a copy of their 

antici; 5, which are here inserted to complete the 

feast of intellect intended to be enjoyed. 



guard of our lib 

Speech of the Hon. Ebenezer Bradbury, of Auburndale, 
formerly commander of the Newburyport Artillery Coin; any, 
which position he filled upon the reappearance of that corps on 
this occi 

OrjE Cll . in SOI I'll. us — 

lounced is suggestive of topics commonly forming 

h of July spesches. To such a sentiment, a 

be gi'en, exceedingly general, or particular and studied. My 

liment to the position assigned to me on this 

:;:id I think I do not misinterpret their 

tuting, in some degree, the cot; the historic 

for the - ' am quite inclined to adopt the sentiment, and follow 

o'.c of our reverend fellow townsman, now of Bangor To study 

■ 

preliminary to a filial visit to the paternal homestead. This, of all occasions, 

is one an tulation, for friendly interchanges, for the revival of 

iulgcncc of local pride and affection. 

Who ' the idea of the i To be a citizen 

is one thing, to be a soldier is another, and the easier. And then, too, if every 



92 THE NEWRURYPOIlT CELEBRATION. 

body was a (jo-xl citizen we should need no soldiers, and that fad 
shadow on this topic. And besides, in discussing this compound character, 
wc are in danger of landing on debatable ground The economist deems it 
an expensive mode of defending the right, and the Bcientic professional 
warrior deems it an inefficient mode. Models of intrepid patriotism, and 
military excellence, from provincial and pure revolutionary history, could 
be arrayed before you. But who would listen to the r 

Standish ' in the armi f James, or on the heaths of James' 

native land, amid the clansmen of the 1 It value is the 

question whethi i ■ I ;rom the 

militia parade, were the greatest generals' And later wars are pregnant with 

ins not to be discussed, as to 

We came here to-day as soldi of a quarter of a 

-," who in their 

day, and i-i this day, present fair illustrations o of the character 

complimented in the toast. This corps, enjoyii 3 historic name 

of the " Newburyport Artillery Company," co luring the 

n, and volunteered, with full ranks, to serve under Lafayette in the 

Hhode Island expedition. It has from that day to this been a school of 

in, of public spirit, of social order, and often of military scien i; 

been composed of men who knew their righ maintain 

them. From its ranks many hi 

a partial title at least to the honor of the 
appellation of "citizen soldiers." 

The gratification afforded in this re-assembling of old associate? from 
various districts of the country tcned by 

witnessing the beautiful and discipli i of their successors, the 

present corps who have so well performed your escort duty to day. May- 
darker day, and may I rS in all 
.11 their tactics, and training, ■ as instrumental 
i tl e ;n il purpose of securing the civil rights of the com- 
munity of which they form a part. 

. ' — The fame of Iter statesmi n . - everlasting as her granite 
hills. 

Speech of lion. A.bn . Grreenleaf, the first Mayor of Ports- 
mouth, X. EL in behalf of the Portsm '-ion. 

M». Mavok wii Gentlemen — 

Til., annual return of tin- day, even under ordinary circumstances, is of 

itself deeply interesting to every Am ri in. a Is to awaken the 

I'he anniversary of an event by which the old 

and independent sovereignties, 

.hi n , i i . ir to an American heart without calling forth some of the 



THE DINNER. 03 

noblest sentiments of national pride. We naturally, on these occasions, look 
back to the facta and circumstances that were instrumental in bringing abont 
this state of things, a id especially to that Declaration of Independence which 
so signally marked thai great event, and which appears un re 
page of our national history. It is now, and has been, from time-honored 
usage, the practice, on the return of this anniversary, to read that I 
tion, containing as it does the bill of wrongs and oppressions that 
impetus to our separation from in try, but not became we are 

still harboring or cherishing in oar bosoms an old grudge against tb 
of that nation to which the Si ll '■■ icriea were once subject. Wc 

can have no personal animosity now to cherish — certainly not against the 
people of Great Britain in those times, for that generation has long since 
passed to its last account ; nor can we he disposed to transfer to the present 
generation of Englishmen any hereditary national malevolence that maj 
ii entertained by our progenitors against the past, for that would be 
visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children ; but wo now annually recur 
to that instrument as an item of the deepest interest in our carl . 

as it defines the causes that impelled our fathers to i 
shows that our cause was just, and exhibits to the world the fairness of our 
origin as a people. 

It was happily remarked by a cogent and powerful writer of onr Revolu- 
tion, that "never hail. a country so many openings to happiness as th 
setting out in life, like the rising of a fair morning, was unclouded and 
promising. Her cause was good. Her principles just and liberal. Her temper 
serene and firm. Her conduct regulated by the nicest steps, and everything 
about her wore the mark of honor. It is not every country, perhaps there is 
not another in the world, that can boast so fair an origin. Even the first 
settlement of America corresponds with the character of the Revolution. 
Rome, once the proud mistress of the universe, was originally a land of 
ruffians. Plunder and rapine made her rich, and the oppression of millions 
made her great. But Am rica needs never be ashamed to tell her birth, nor 
relate the stages by which she rose to empire." 

Such was the true ami faithful delineation of our position and national 
r. drawn by a master spirit of our Revolution, at the close of the 
great struggle for independence, and at the very moment when "the times 
I men's souls" were over, and the tumult of war had given place to 
the tranquility of peace. And now, af |l more than thri 

years and ten, we trust we may safely felicitate ourselves in looking 
the intervening pages of our history, without a pang of regret to mar the fair 

then so nobly won. This of itself, as I have already u 
is a cause of joy and fe lay, under any and 

aUcircam to this numerous assemblage, is 

of far more than ordinary interest— made so by the return of so many of the 
sons and daughters of Newbury and Newburyp 
from which they have, many of them for a long period of time, been volun- 



94 THE NEWBDKTPORT CELEBRATION. 

tary exiles, to join with you in celebrating the nativity of their country's l.irth 

it where they (ir»t inhaled the atmosphere of freedom. Tl • 
peculiar charm in revisiting the place of one's nativity, however humble it 
m:iy he, that has a strong hold on every heart ; for th impres- 

endure through life, and to which we are wont to recur with a 
rente. How touchingly ami beautifully has 
one of our poets alluded to this innate attachment to the loved si 
our early homes. 

- v childhood, 
•iid recollection presents them to view ; 

Iwood, 

Sir, we a today of the universality of this feeling, 

in the present demonstration of the sons and daughters of this ancient town^ 

who with so gri ponded to the invitation of your city 

authoriii the scenes of their nativity and early life— to roam 

throu our 1 I out streets — to view once more your public 

buildings — your i — the Frog Pond and Mali — the shores 

of the .Merrimack — to visit perhaps Black Rocks, where we ustd to fish for 

"torn cods," and the sandy, sea-heaten shores of Plum Island, where, long 

before a bridge across Plum Island river was thought of, we used to make 

odical excursions, picking beach plums gathering broom stuff to 

nd brooms, with which treak our 

sanded floors, (for there were comparatively few carpeted floors in those 

days,) — there too we would shoot plo'. , and roll down | 

6and hills. Finally, to look once more upon your verdant hills and valleys 

and all thi around you, not forgetting the old Common Pasture 

tnd alio, e all, sir, to take by the hand 

their fathers, their mothers, their sisters, and their brothers, and all tl 

associates and connections, to indulge once more in the luxury of mutual 

greetings, and join in the rejoicings and festivities of our country's natal 

day. This, my friends, is an occasion that rei ry heart. 

I know something of this from a similar gathet ing at my ad 

anniversary of Independence, one year since, and I doubt if an occasi n had 

y, that imparted to the hearts of our cummu- 

imount of joy. 

Sir, 1 i . cof our birth, has, I believe, stron . 

it, whether for perm I I I, 

or only for a time, still love it, like " the old arm chair" of their mothers. 

m better than the place of their nativitj 
purposes of gain. They think, perhi 

ii.. .' til 
at intervals, return to ll ime leave their birth-] 

for a season, not intend local weather beaten 



THE DINNER. '.C, 

mariners; they cross every ocean— every sea— sail to all parts of the world- 
wend iheir way op i v< rj river, but leave their wives and all their loi 
at the old home, r ,, to sea to increase their means — "to mako 

the crown a pound," and the "crown and Che pom 
ind wives " at home. 
i D said of Portsmouth, my adopted citv, that though 

owes much to i 
enterprising efforts of its inhabitants in the improvements of art, i 

population fa !y increased but slowly, and 

know but some such remark has at particular times been applied to 

pposed, however, that in the race of business and improve! 
ong about alike, 
much upon home capital. I have heard the remark from old sailors, that 
those who make the most spattering in the water with their oars, arc not 
always making the best headway. 1 think, on the whole, it' I may judge 
from a general view/you are doing wi 
that improvement consists in a i n 

of population, I trust that, like Portsmouth, you are not so much in 
many other cities, to a current of foreign immigration, setting in upon your 
shores like the mountain torrent to overwhelm you — and it is 

doubtful if you would be the happier for such an influx. You nevertheless 

■ 
mostly in the old fashioned way, perhaps— but American mothers, « 
them, are the best mothers in the world ; and from the 

.ition from your sons abroad, now come back to greet yon, we have 
a pretty plain demonstration of the goodly numbers of your pro 
from time to time swarmed from the old hive. 1 have been thinking, since I 

n them pouring in upon you in such large nni re would 

have been no lack of population if all bad remained at 

But it is more than questionable after all, whether it ought to be deemed a 
matter of complaint or regret that our sons go abroad, though I have often 
thought if they would make the same effort, and submit to the same priva- 
tions at home as they necessarily do abroad, they might often do i 
well at home, and enjoy quite as much of life ; but there is a proper time for 
them to enter upon the stage life, and assume, among the people of ; ! 
their appropriate station as men and citizens, and if they go abn 
sometimes better their condition : at all events they better learn to rely upon 
their own energi iw, not as a son, but as a father, for 

old man it is in that relation thi imilate my own feelin 

yours. It is true that if our sons leave their parental" roof and go forth upon 
the wide world, we arc ever anxious for their - 

numerous imaginary ill may lie in wait to cut off 

their enjoyment i ity, (and to our Borrow, such 

: ions ere not always groundless | Yd, the j > in whii h we luxuri- 
ate on thoir occasional return to us, is one of the gr at i of life," 



96 Tin: xr.wm uyi-okt celebration. 

and seems to make ample amends for the anxious hours we have passed in 
their absence. Why, sir, even the prodigal son, especially when resolutely 
bent on amendment of life, finds a warm welcome in the home of his child- 
hood; the parental bosom nurses no "accusing spirit" to frown on his 
approach, — compassion alone bears sway — the father even runs and falls on 
the neck of the repentant son— they embrace — heart heats to heart. — a tear is 
dropped upon the record of his errors — they are blotted out forever, — wiped 
away as with a sponge, and remembered no more against him. Even the 

is ordered to be brought forth, — the fatted calf is killed, and joy 
and festivity resound among the inmates of the old domicil. Indeed, the 
pan^s and regrets of parting with our friends are in themselves sources of 
heartfelt felicity — they do but prepare the way for the alternate joys of meet- 
ing, and both are but specimens of the alternate tights of which 
this life i~ made up, and which are in fact necessary to complete the picture ; 
for, if there were no shadows, we would not appreciate the light. How, for 

great jubilee, this heartfelt 

greeting, if we had never parted ? Despairingly, indeed, might we look upon 

the " black lettered list" of " ills that flesh is heir to," were it not that the 

"kind relenting angel," in making it up, has " slipped in." here and there, a 

B . consoling then the thought.'that, amid tears of sorrow, tears 

of regiet and tears of woe, we i permitted to indulge in 

of joy. 

Sir, 1 onght not to take up the time of this numerous auditory in - 

ero, in his discourse on old B | uts into 

the mouth of the . M ei Cato, tells ns that if r privilege of old 

men to talk of themselves. But, sir, allow me to say that this scene of fes- 
tivity is to me, in a peculiar manner, a sort of jubilee, not to be -. ii 

"f a common festival, but to some extent like the solemn : 
the ancient Hebrews, that was kept 

if my life be spared, I will have entered on the fiftieth year since I left this 
place of my nativity, to take up my abode in a ity. 1 was then 

a young man of twenty-one. Hence, in that city, 1 can look back on the 
ahood, there 1 commenced mj duties as the head of a 
family. There I have I rought up children. There a portion of 

them re: in their last sleep, and although much the larger portion of the 
remainder of my progeny are located in distant cities, I mast be pi 
to have strong attachments to the city of n ■ ! 

citizen of " ' 'Id Strawberry Bank" for a term verging upon half of a century 
I begin to think I may e in of a native. 

But to this, my native town, though my attachments are of con 
different character, they arc nevertheless strong. Sir, mj 
enough for both. Here the general am imily first located him- 

self and his family with him, some two hundred and twenty years ago, as 
emigrant* from the county of Devonshire, in England. They were of the 



THE DINNER. 97 

^ect of Protestants in France, contemptuously termed Huguenots, who fled to 
England to escape persecution, and finally emigrated to this country and 
•'ocated themselves in Newbury, (now Newburyport) in or about the year 
1635. So says the tradition which I have often heard re eated by my hon- 
ored grandmother, and so says the historian who has compiled and is about 
publishing (or bus published 1 a genealogical history of the family. I have 
already alluded to the luxury of mutual greetings between the sons of New- 
buryport and their fathers, their mothers, their sisters and brothers, and all 
their early associations ; and I most heartily rejoice in the occasion. But 
alas, sir, although I am a son of . Newburyport, I have no father, no mother, 
no sister, no brother now, to take by the hand. I am the only survivor of 
twelve children of the same father, and I find there are few left among 
•other connections of my generation, and few of my early associates and 
friends. There was a time, sir, when I thought I knew and could call by 
name nearly every family man in this place, and of course most of the boys ;. 
but now there is not one probably in a hundred with wham I have had the 
pleasure of an acquaintance. Yet here I love occasionally to return, to roam 
through your city and its environs, — to view the scenes of my infant days, — 
more particularly among those localities which have most retained the as- 
pect of former times, — to look upon the house in which I was born, erected 
by my honored father, and in which my excellent mother died, too early, 
alas, for me to recollect her, but of whom I have heard so much, that the sight 
of this unpretending mansion ever calls forth emotions of filial reverence 
and veneration. Honor thy father and thy mother is said to be the first com- 
mandment with promise, but where is the son or the daughter claiming the 
respect of society, who does not esteem it among the higher order of priv- 
ileges, to love the immediate authors of their being, while living, and to rev- 
erence their memories when no more. 

But as a large portion of my associates and connections here, of my gen- 
•eration, have passed to their long home, I have only the melancholy pleasure 
•of re-visiting their graves. Yet even then I find subjects of contemplation, 
that are neither unpleasant nor unprofitable. 1 have nevertheless, on this 
•occasion, met with a goodly number of old acquaintances, still residents of 
this city, with whom I have been happy to meet, and others, who like my- 
self, have been long abroad, some living at a great distance, with whom I 
should probably never again have exchanged salutations, but for the peculiar 
occasion that has now drawn us together. 

There is much more that I would like to say, for the variety of matter that 
I would deem applicable to this occasion, is by no means exhausted. 1 did 
intend to have given a few hasty sketches of some of the men who occupied 
prominent stations in your community, when I was young, and had, in fact, 
committed some of them to writing ; but I am admonished that 1 have 
already extended my remarks beyond a reasonable length. I will, therefore, 
close by tendering my thanks, both in behalf of myself and my colleagues 
composing the delegation from Portsmouth, for the invitation vou have 

9 



98 THK NEW13URYP0KT CELEBRATION. 

extended to us, in common with your sons from the various cities throughout 
the Union, and for the cordial welcome with which we have heen met— a 
welcome that baa thrilled our hearts, — not because we have seen it written 
upon your banners— upon the borders of your streets, or upon your house- 
tops, but because we fed that it is more legibly written upon your hearts. 
I now oiler you the following sentiment : 

The Citizens of Newburyport and thei am • Wivt and ' lughlert — A 
community of a highly moral character — Intelligent, well educated, liberal 
and hospitable; may her prosperity and happiness ever attend them. 

Virginia — The birth-place of the most distinguished son in our nation's 
history. 

Speech of S. B. T. Caldwell, Esq., of Wheatland, Va. : 
Mb. Mayor and Fellow Citizens of Newbi btfobt — 

Is it possible I stand here the sole representative of the good Old Domin- 
ion ? Is there no one here to respond to the sentiment just offered ! If so, I 
am sorry she is no more ably represented. Yet something must be said ; 
although it is not my intention to inflict a Bpeech upon you, I must say some- 
thing. I owe it to you, whose hospitality I enjoy — I owe it to myself and 
to my adopted state to say a word or two. 

I claim not the high honor of being a native son of Newburyport— No ! I 
was born among the granite hills of New Hampshire, but much of my time 
was spent in this model town. It was here, with unfortunate "Mastei 
Coffin," and your highly esteemed and much lamented Banister, that I 
pleasantly, and I trust profitably, the latter years of my boyhood. It 
was here that 1 first learned the great and important lesson of self-depend- 
ence, and it was here that I first felt the full force of that curse pronounced 
upon all the descendants of Adam, that I was to " eat my bread by the 
sweat of my brow." I saw too, that this devoted town was withering, liter- 
ally, under the seething effects of lire and sword. The lire of 1811 had 
crippled, and the war of '12 had prostrated, her commercial prosperity, and 
that there was then poor encouragement for a pennyless dependent U] 
profession 01 calling. But a change has come over the spirit of her dream. 

With these facts before me, I left the loved home of my youth and wan- 
dered forth under the guidance of that superintending providi 
" Who G of all, 

A hero perish, or a sparrow fall." 
That Providence directed my footsti ps into Virginia, and by a singular 
fatality kept me there and gave entirely a new direction to my business pur- 
suits. For years I felt myself a temporary sojourner there. 1 did not like 
her political institutions, among other reasons, I ranchised mc — 

did not ullow me the poor privilege of voting, although she taxed me heavily. 
Bui 1 did like the salubrity of her climate— the fertility of her soil— 
pitality of her people, and tho fascinating charms of at least <•;., of her fair 
daughters. 



TOE DINNEB. 99 

' But in 1S30 it pleased the people of that state to revise their constitution, 
and by so doing they took me into full political communion ; still many 
deserving citizens were without the pale of the constitution, and many glaring 
defects in their organic law still existed. In due time, after two decades, she 
again, in 1850, adopted another constitution, more republican in all its 
features — some think a Itctle too much so. Under it, however, she is 
arousing- from her lethargy- -following the example of her sister states, by 
improving her fair domain — making her railroads and canals, and developing 
her almost inexhaustible resources. No state in this great and glorious con- 
federacy possesses greater natural advantages than my good old step-mother. 
It is true she has her faults, and where is the community that has not. If 
left to herself she will correct them as readily as any other people. But 

i all her faults I love her still." 
I am proud of my native state, and rejoice in her prosperity. Proud of this, 
my alma nutter, and rejoice to meet so many of her accomplished (not prod- 
igal) sons today — proud of my adopted state, and rejoice to see her profiting 
by good examples; and proud that I stand before you a citizen of the Amer- 
ican Union, feeling no prejudice— knowing no sectional interest. Proud of 
my country, my whole country, and nothing but my country. But my affec- 
tions are centred in Virginia. In her bosom repose the ashes of my sainted 
mother, my beloved wife, and three of my affectionate children. Her soil is 
consecrated ground, and I see infused into her institutions a little more of 
that spirit which so signally marks the counsels of this and my native state, 
and which is the brightest gem on the fair escutcheon of this enchanting town 
— I mean that noble spirit which liberally provides for the education of yonr 
eons and your daughters by the diffusion of free schools among your thriving 
population, I should be prouder still. 

Your town has been, time immemorial, proverbial for the excellence of her 
educational facilities, throwing the door of knowledge wide open to all your 
children, inviting them to enter and partake " without money and without 
price." But not satisfied with that, your Putnam has raised a monument to 
his memory more lasting than granite, by establishing a school of high grade, 
which, if I understand aright, is open and free to the whole country. Would 
to God the whole union had free access to such schools. They are what 
makes Newbnryport proud of her sons, and her sons proud of her. I will 
close by submitting the following sentiment : 

.\ uyport — Her churches and her school-houses are lasting monuments 
of her moral and mental culture ; her physical and pecuniary abilities are 
seen all around and about tt». 

The Merchant and tlie. Artisan— By whose enterprise and skill our cities 
are founded, our riven dammed, earth's ocean traversed, and the desert made 
to bloom and bud like the rose. 

Speech of Thomas Woodman, Esq., of the Lowell dele- 
gation. 

Mr. President — 
There arc heads fuller charged with acceptable thoughts than mine, and 



100 THE NEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION. 

better disciplined tongues to give them utterance among the small delegathw 
from Lowell to day, who might speak to the edification and interest of thi? 
large and intelligent group of children who are now assembled around the 
family table; but as they seem inclined to an "expressive silence," I will, in 
a few words, try to unburden a heart almost ready to burst with strong and 
varied emotions. I congratulate myself that I am permitted to be here to-day. 
where there can be no mid shoulders, but where nature seems most cordially 
to unite with " the old folks at home" in giving the returning children as 
warm a reception as could reasonably be wished. But sir, intense as the heat 
has been, I have escaped a sun-stroke,. yet I must own up to beinc powerfnlli 
the beautiful and intelligent countenances of your daughter*, and, to 
quote an old native bard, whose epitaph was written many years before he 
died, by a sister bard still living, I have vividly felt that " there was music 
in beauty," and could 

" Hardly control 

The wild dance of the son], 

With dimples and smiles singing by " 

I am not "a man with son] so dead" as not to love the spot where I firs} 
saw the bright green of earth arid the calm blue of heaven ; and I havtf 
reason to love it, sir. One of its beautiful gardens of graves is the resting- 
place of my honored parents, who, when living, "None knew but to love," 
and whom, now dead, " None name but to praise." True, my fattier was a 
rank and file man, he was a baker, but nothing would make me more crusty 
to find the man who dared to call him stack-baked, ddugfi-foccA or douglt- 
beaded. He was one of the noblest works of God — an honest man. 

Some of my own bones lie here too, sir. It seems to be my lot to pay 
the great debt of nature by installments. I lost part of a finger here soma 
thirty years since, and but four years ago a part of my right arm, in Lowell 
and although I felt rather modest about 6aying any thing on this occasion, 
who is there better qualified to take the stump, or make an off ham! 
than myself. 1 lived in this town nearly twenty two years before I left it, 
and after an absence of eight years returned again and sojonrned here a few 
years longer, then a;ain bid it good-bye, and in the expressive language of 
Goldsmith, I ean truly say, that 

" 1 dragg'd at each remove a lengthening chain." 
I had long thought Newburyport wse rather small of her age, bat lam happy 
*•> see that she has grown fast since I was here last, and I honor tho 
led in the movement thus to "lengthen her cords," although I frankly 
own that I am no annexationist, in the pi ae of the term. 

It gladdens my heart that I am again permitted to behold tl . 
like Mount Zion of old, so "beautiful for situation " the "joy" of all her 

, and the admiration of all who have ever "stood within her 
She has been " a fruitful Tine," and ' ber children" today have been •• hki 
olive plants round about her table." To borrow still Farther the language off 
the Bard of Israel, "May her sons ever be as plants gi 



Till: DINNER. 101 

and her daughters be as cornerstones polished after the similitude of a 
palace." 

There are many little, but to me interesting localities, the original features 
of which have been nearly obliterated by the rapid march of public improve- 
ment, which I need not name, yet around them all 
l h wish of my : 
Entwines itself verdantly still." 

But there are others still left. Frog Pond is not yet dry. Precious old spot ! 
May its boundaries never be loss. I have been glad to see to-day that there 
still " Green grow the rushes O." But where are those wide-spreading 
willows that shaded the spot where I once went to school, under which 1 
have made the only whistles that I have not paid " too dear" for. I passed 
that spot this morning but tiny wire gone, " root and branch." They have 
mrde their last bows and taken their last leaves, and it made me sad to think 
that I should never sit under their shadows again. That old wooden school- 
house is gone too. I shall never forget that. I have been " clapped" there 
many times ; but clapping in those days meant most anything but 
applause. 

Turkey Hill I believe yet stands firm, and other places where shag-barks 
could be obtained, that I used to visit in Autumn, when the frost-king had 
been over them and left his tokens there. And here, Mr. President, bear 
with me if I introduce a few lines of my own, published some dozen years 
since, descriptive of a nutting enterprise. 

How often through those woodlands, with some adventurous band 

Of hardy schoolmates, would I roam with club and pole in hand; 

And wiS 

T'ill the armor' d nuts were beaten off and rattled down like hail. 

And there we linger' d till the sun shed hi- espiri 

Then swung our burdens on our backs and homeward urg'd our way, 
And lucky wights we though) ourselves it when our toil was o'er 
No ruthless: " lawful owners" came to rob us of our store. 
I might allude to many other spots, Mr. President, each possessing a 
charm, but I forbear. My design was, in a few words, to empty a full heart, 
but the tide of strong emotion rushes in much faster than I can free myself 
of it in language, and I shall relieve the company, if I do not myself, by 
sitting down. Be assured, sir, that this glad meeting to-day has invested the 
place of my birth with new endearments, and I shall hereafter love it with ft 
firmer, fonder, heartier and holier affection. Permit me to offer as my 
concluding sentiment — 

The Beautiful City of Neubwryport — "Peace be within thy walls, and 
prosperity within thy palaces, for my brethren and companions sake." I 
will now say, PEACE BE within THEE. 

The Early Reminiscences of the Old Revisiting Sons. 
Speech of John Merrill, Esq., of New York : 

Mn. PRESIDENT — 

As one of those old sons, (though somewhat the junior of one of the familv 

9" 



102 THE NEWBtRYFORT CELEBRATIOX. 

of a previous generation, who has actively participated in the celebration, )' 
while I have witnessed the very cordial, and in more senses than one the very 
reception, accorded to as, and which receives, as it demands, our most 
grot '.'fill acknowledgments, I naturally recur to my early associations and 
early associates. What I say on this subject is not the result of mach reflec- 
tion, being unexpectedly here, and necessarily referring to myself in this- 
connection miy savor of egotism. Of my brief reference to a 
deal in generalises, as it would be invidious to attempt to | 
am fully aware, too, of the impracticability of preparing any suggestions, 
which would be appropriate both to an hilarious meeting and to the occasion 
of grave contemplation- Among my earliest recollections of any general 
interest, was the launch from the ship-yard, near Huckleberry Pasture, (to 
adopt the popular pronunciation,! in which 1 first gave evidence of pot g 

longs and vitality; I say the launch of a monster merchant ship, which attracted 
a vast concourse of people, about 55 years ago and about 5 years after the 
invention, by the builder, of the mode of building by models. Why, sir, she 
was about 600 tons, and called, I think, the •' Massachusetts " That inven- 
tion of the model, with little or no alteration, has been gratuitously used by 
individuals and the L T . S. Government ever I 

Then sir, we were pupils of the schools in Pillsbury's lane — Amos Whit- 
more, master, and a very good one, though he made no great pretensions to- 
high literary attainments ; afterwards long an officer of the customs. There 
was announced the decease of the " Father of his Country/' and in honor or 
his memory, we boys of some half a dozen years of age, attempted on a very 
small stale what we called a military celebration 

Soon after the family removed to what the Low streeters called " Tiptoe," 
as I suppose they thought that our streets looked down upon them This- 
too, was in or near the place known by the euphonious name of Pilfershire, 
the boundaries of which I did not know, or have forgotten. Then too, the 
church on Grasshopper Plains having passed the stage of occupancy — there 
being DO minister — we went clown to town to meeting, many of us to the iron 
works, (I intend no disrespect) near Brown's Square on Saturday after- 
noons to recite the shorter Westminster Catcrhism, and when pro] 
children, hud the privilege of selecting a " choice " book from 
Library ; and on Sundays were privileged with two long services, wbi 
ally the legitimate doctrines of that Catechism— as total depravity, final 
perseverance, election, Sc, were discussed and "proved;" and now 
'he foundation remains, the superstructure has entirely disappeared. Then 
houses of worship were unwarmed. What think you our modern people 
ay to such a service, in such a house, on one of our cold winter days, 
or especially Low would our fashionable belles fare, with their thin, shoes and 
thinner dresses. But here I would say in all seriousness, that the ) 
whose subsequent preaching of politics, as a fed Id not have pre 

judged me in his favor, was highly talented— a powerful signer and an 
accomplished gentleman, and has left a very worthy representative of desan 



THE DINNER. 103 

cdly very high standing, in the person of his son, the oldest clergyman of our 
largest city. 

But let this kind of remark suffice. I have introduced this trifling partly 
that the announcement of my sentiment should not too much sadden the 
pleasant feelings of our company, but principally to illustrate a practice then 
and previously prevalent, of calling persons and places by ludicrous or re- 
proachful names, but which happily has become nearly obsolete. But I 
must pass rapidly along or trespass on others' time. The schools, academy 
and college, brought up to the time of the great fire, which had a blighting 
influence on the town, in connection with the embargoes, non-intercourse and 
war,) and thence to seeking a living by business occupations, in which I 
remained in town longer than many of my associates. In the mean time 
taking a very active interest in politics, in a small minority, and without the 
most remote idea th.it my services gave any claim to a reward, except the 
satisfaction resulting from a conscientious discharge of duty. Were I in a 
modern political assembly, I should not make the statement with any expec- 
tation of being believed. Possibly, some of us were not considered so ijreen 
afterwards. These disasters aided in the removal of our young men. And 
what should be our reflections ' Why, sir, they have met with varied results. 
A few have stepped high on the ladder of ambition ; many have become 
distinguished in the liberal professions, and many more as merchants ; some 
of us here, a promiscuous meeting of old and young — of the associates of the 
former, a large proportion have almost imperceptibly dropped off by the way. 
and the residue, by a wise provision of providence, arc being shoved aside by 
those mure energetic and enterprising. Is this a matter of complaint? I 
think not ; and as on the list of the aged, and having some experience, per- 
mit me to give a word of advice in regard to those who are just entering upon 
If our boys, (and by the way, I believe there are no lioys now.) 
Well, if your sons are content to live pleasantly and happily on small means, 
stay, If they are tired of the restraints of home, and determined to 
enjoy the pleasures of the cities as many view them, bid them farewell, but 
with the hope, not reasonable expectation, without charge, that they will acid 
to your comfort, or their own reputation. But if you have boys, who have 
brains, and who regard the prayers, the anxieties, the advice, of pious mothers 
or parents ; who are determined to apply themselves with industry to the 
object for which they quit the endeared home of their infancy and youth ; es- 
pecially, if they possess that firmness of purpose, that of char- 
acter, those principles of morality which will enable them to resist thefasci 
nations, temptations, fashionable follies and vices with which they will come 
in contact, let them go to our large cities, withont repining, and with ■■ 
of confidence that your declining years will not be embittered by their dire- 
lie tin - Let them keep up with the rail-road speed of progress. Let them 
devote their unti on just principles to the object they have in 
view, though the sky of their prosperity may temporarily be overcast, they 
will eventually succeed. Let them go cheerfully on your part, and a fixed 



104 THE NEWBURYFOUT CELEBRATION. 

purpose on their's to accomplish the ohject of their mission. Let them take 
little or no interest in the fanatical movements and the numerous humbugs of 
the day. Especially, let them avoid political office, or at any rate the desire 
of it. Having reasonably succeeded, let them return, if they will, and add to 
the enjoyment of those who have been the constantly attractive objects of 
their meditations in their occasional hours of retirement from the bustle and 
cares of business. At least they may occasionally return temporarily, as we 
have done, to receive the cordial welcome of old acquaintances, if not the 
public welcome, which the city and its citizens have so freely and liberally 
extended this day. to their returned sons and daughters, 

Tlie Pulpit — The foundation and support of those virtues which 80 emi- 
nently adorn the -New England character. 

Speech of Rev. Ephraim W. Allen, of Salem. 

.Mi:. .Maiur and FjBIEKDS — 

The chief value of a gathering like this, is not that we who have been 
separated from each other hy longer or shorter intervals of time or space, are 
brought together among these scenes of our childhood, that we may sec each 
other's faces — hear each other's voices — ;_'rasp each other's hands, and speak of 
the incidents of our earlier days — of our studies and our sports, and dwell for 
a day upon the experiences of the periods that have lied ; bat it is that we 
may cherish the sentiment of union, which, by binding n- t < the place of our 
birth shall also bind us more firmly to the country which is but the aggregate 
of its several municipalities. The best son i ti, and the best 

citizen is the best patriot. Where the feeling of nationality is feeble, there 
we may be pretty sure to find an almost total want of attachment to the place 
of one's birth. But, met as wc are today, under auspices so happy — with 
words of welcome so cordial, and with demonstrations of respect and affec- 
tion everywhere so abundant — how can we fail of bearing away with us to 
our new places of abode, a love for our old home more intense than ever, and 
which shall, for iter sake, make more dear the greater home wc call our coun- 
try. 

No son of Newburyport can read her history without being thrilled by the 
story of her devotion to our native land. Nowhere has patriotism had a ho- 
lier shrine — nowhere has she had more devoted worshipers. And when, to- 
day, we listened anew to the voice of her resolves, and were summoned again 
to think of the saci ifices of her sons — of her sons given cheerfully to 1 
flicts and perils of the land and ea, 1 1 i liberty die. I from the 

land, it could not be, until we bad forgotten the virtues of the deeds of our 
fathers. 

Sii evcrj patriotii Iloction of the past, must inspirit even 

Newburj port to fidelity, to freedom- now,- adly we say it — 

no n imperiled. The free spirit of the land entered long since upon i 

is had various fortunes, bnt which ha nted a more im- 



Tin: DINNER. 105 

posing, a more impressive a-pect than ii presents to-day. The issue of the 
contest cannot be doubtful it will be prosperou — glorious — if there shall 
only be no waverings- II- wi I best deserve the title, '■Sun of Newburyport," 
who will be most satisfied, most persistent, most determined. Allow me, 
then, sir, in the spirit of these rem .rs>, to offer the following sentiment : 

Thi S ' il and earnest in tlnir defence of liberty 

during the Revolution , — ma) the) be an faithful and earnest in the present 
great crisis of our nation.. I I istory 

" Then let usbi '.Ton!; 

Till fr 

Tk Plough the Loom, and the Anvil — Mutually dependent upon each 
other. 

Speech of Hon. Allen W. Dodge of Hamilton. 
Mr. Mayor — 

I assure you that I enter fully into the spiiit of this gathering to the old 
homestead of the Sons of Newburyport. It is the first, and probablj 
of the kind that most of us will ever attend. There is something of a 
melancholy interest in this meeting of old friends, to witness the chan 
time and care have wrought in faces and forms once so familiar, or to be 
reminded of those who started with us in life, hut one after another have 
passed away, to be seen among us no more. And then the effort to renew 
our youth, and to be boys again as In days of yore, cannot bat impre 
reflecting mind that the effort must cease w th the occasion, and that to-mor- 
row we must join in the lock step march of life, in the very ranks which our 
years have inexorably assigned to us. 

The men of former years — those representative men, whom we were 
accustomed to look upon with reverence and awe — how sadly we n iss them 
from their accustomed haunts. The eye looks in vain (or the well-known 
forms of a Spring or an Andrews, of Vergnic s and Bradstreet, of Fitz and 
Woart, of Bartlet and Brown, of Watch and McPhail. Hers and 
can see one whom we recognize as belonging to that list of worthies, associ- 
ated in our memory with the former glory of Newburyport. But the chain 
that linked us to them is broken. 

If sad thoughts steal over the mind, there are pleasant ones too. As wt 
walked in the procession through the streets, the verj at of the 

good old place, and the BO ne BUggl -.live of the good old times. There were 
the same lofty elms and limes- their shade never more grateful than when we 
halted under it now. There was the o B, rejuvenated like our- 

selves, hut Justice, with her even scales, alas, was Bed. There was the self 
same mall, flanked on either side bj the two brick school-houses — and there 
the pond, just as we left it, when our little craft Bailed its last trip upon its 
waters. Beyond, were the heights, now so gracefully terraced, studded as 
thickly as ever with monuments to the dead, but with the lonely powder house 
no longer standing sentinel over litem. There were the over-arching trees on 



106 THE NEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION. 

the roa<l li -antly up from Guinea and common pasture, whence 

■ troo] ing home at -undown. 

\\\ could see the familiar old steeples, with their faithful vanes — the only 
ones we could ever trust ; the flaming r ,1 morf Bamii 

tavern sign — and we teemed to Bee, aye, we 

really did Bee, the identical old lumbered up with trunks and 

band-boxes, as in the days of sonnding horn and rattling wheels ; and as we 
thought of all tlie merry times we used to have in that old stage-coach, it 
seemed to as a pity that railroads were ever invented. 

But many of the ancient land-marks, by which the town was mapped on our 
memory, had disappeared. The lofty statues — to our young eyes the perfec- 
tion of art— tli at once filled the grounds around the mansion of Lor i 
even the three last survivors, who for so many years lingered at their posts 
over the door-way— were all, all gone. The town pump, that rose so majes- 
tically in the centre of the market-square, and imparted to us boys, as we 
gazed np while imbibing its waters, our first ideas of monumental architecture, 
had dwindled into most woful insignificance; and thi n of the 

" ruins," with its mysterious arches and dismal piles of brick 
where our lecture-day diggings were often rewarded with pockets full of old 
iron and copper, was all huilt upon, and not a solitary vestige of the ravages 
of the Great lire was any where to he seen. 

But 1 forbear alluding further to the men and scenes of the days of old, in 
the place of our birth and education. It is pleasant to refresh our memories 

of them, by revisiting, so many of us to 1 old homestead. The 

day will not soon be for We all owe a debt of gratitude to you, 

Mr. Mayor and citizens, for all'ording us the opportunity tn meet together 
under such pleasant anspici S. Surely the ardent prayer of us all most be for 
her continued prosperity. May her moral and educational atmosphere ever 
remain as pure and invigorating as when we breathed it ; and may religion 
exert the within her gates, as h. name of 

praise throughout the land. 

port — From the East and West, North and South, her long absent 

mi. i ii .nid this day, a delightful home in het : heart. 

Speech of Col. Amos Tappan, Chief Marshal of the proces- 



Mb. M won — 

In response to your invitation to eome home, they have from their various 
and distant dispersions, ■ I affectionate hearts, found tl 

to their a ind with kindred and [ t residents and 

ire gathered on this ever memorable and glorious birthday of 
our national ind pendem e, to rei ive thi e upon 

familiar bat change I i ountenancea, to speak of things that wi re, to hring to 
mind the men of other days, so eminent in their stations of lift, as ministers 



TUE DINNER. 107 

of the gospel, as judges and jurists, as teachers of youth, us physicians, aa 
lawyers, as men of business by sea and by land ; to bavi ■ treshed 

with the deeds of the hero s and statesmen of B n olution try times; to peak 
of the pa-it , the present, and the future; to mingle in the joys, and fe 
and greetings of tliis auspicious day, so calculated to inspire and animate 
every American heart with feelings of delight, to strengthen and entwine 
more fully those affections which hind the heart of man to man. 

For a long period of time, our little spot has poured out numbers who have 
been ornaments and blessings of society in others regions, Their departure 
did not impoverish us, but we feel enriched by their return; they went out 
from us, not that they were not of us, but that the place was too straight for 
the expansion and successful operation of their talents, energy and enter- 
prise. They return to the place and find an incorporated city, enlarged in 
its territory, increased in its population, in its churches, schools and manu- 
factures, they return sous and daughters, to gladden every heart, and delight 
every eye, and with the ancient matron we can cordially say, " these are our 
jewels.'' 

Amid the joys of the day, there is saddening thoughts which almost neces- 
sarily intrude ; as our visitors and ourselves are rem: i :ies once 
filled by fond ones never more to be seen on earth. Such is tin- irreversable 
order of Providence. Still let us rejoice that above is a Father's house and 
home, where inmates m^et and mingle without the fear or possibility of a 
separation; nor let us amid these festivitie ,1 o that the proper business 
of life is to prepare for that delightful and happy home. 

Mr. Mayor — I will close with the following sentiment ; 

The early Fathers of Newburyport — Peace to their ashes, and perpetuity to 
their principles. 

May the meeting and the greetings of this auspicious day, he renewed in a 
better world. 

The Reader of the Declaration — The poet and artist — equally successful witli 
pen and brush -may he reap that reward which his genius merits. 

Remarks of Hiram B. Haskell, Esq., of Newburyporfc. 

Mn. Mayor and Friends — 

For so obscure and unimportant an individn.il as myself, 1 think I have 
to-day contributed my share of public <mgh the 

matter I delivered was not original, it was as good as anything I could get off 
myself, as I shall presently illustrate. My inato and ineradicable modesty. 
and my lack of the right kind of talent and knowledge— unci di tjualify 
me for an extempore speaker. However, having been suspicious that some 
mischievous friend would call me out— I availed mysclt of the aid of a slight 
stimulus, and produced the effusion which I will now inflict upon your pa- 
tient hearing. 

Most welcome, Sons! What magic reveille 
Hath called you hither from abroad to-day? 



108 THE NEWBTJRYPORT CELEBRATION. 

What mightier summons than the rattling drum 

come? 
Freedom and Home, twin wo sway, 

Beat in your br I reveille. 

birth- 
pot on earth — 
' i v go/) 

• - glow, 
And <in thea ' would rather dwell, 

I : bun 

From the near East and the far come, 

From yonder pole, just by the northern star, 
And from thi - I say how fir; 

< ih dear old, beautiful old Newburypi 

Vour fountain be 

In this I wish not to disparage 

Hut I would give the dear old town its due. 

1- it not true, as Pope hath said my fi 

" The stream no higher I 

i .■ poets, favoi of 1 

Last in the world's reward, first in my line, 

From the mosl glorious Parnassian climber, 

Down to the humblest namby-pamby rhymer, 

Say, in your '■ 

wander back 
To tins fair bordi iinackV 

i il this river— fain ama — 

I 
ifo merchants, ye who send your Bhips 

Australia or the i 
I o France, and England, and the far Japan, 

And all the i by man, 

on von wharf, 
Did then mnd 1 1 1 i - cough .') 

Tin- first -wect dreamings, like a hogshead's mil, 

i'er each boyish soul? 
Mast press, 

■ 

[will not urgi 

Herald drew — 
Ami ye who deal in partj politics, 

Your i ive '.' 

\\ hen u| 

Too oft in fierce and wintry wo 

Ye law J 

What first awoke your infantile delight 



XII li DINNER. 109 

ice; Bay the first time that you heard 
Of any bar, can i; not be referred 
To Salisbury and Plum Island's Bandy bar? 
0] 
i e le i men of Boston and New York, 

talk, 
What m boyish bent 

1 

v. to be 
Did not your reason learn to dem 
When with the grand old " Ciceronian Club," 
You here drove home the "question " to the liub? 

Ye lain and ye reverend airs, 

"\ e your trade, 

Y'e men of every calling, every grade, 
ulat 'i, clerk, 
yon live bj h it, or wealth, or work, 
'Twould give me pleasure to address you all, 
But time is precious, and my talent small; 
i L ask you in a gentlemanly way, 
If any conscientiously con 
That the first helps to all the good you've got, 
Did not originate in this very spot V 
My strain is dying out, but ere il 
' ' ' friends ; 

1 ou're welcome here, as long as you rem 
Bui when you leave, I ohs i you to sustain 
The ancient honor of your native town — 
By growing smarter, add to her renown — 
And by jour eloquent, well spoken praise^ 
Still more her glorious reputation raise; 
Say, will you -a ■ i in a 

Prettier place, or had a better dinner ? , 



\ ( ) 1 . 1 STEER TOASTS. 
By Edward Burrill, Esq., of Ncwburyport. 

The Sons of Newburyport — Representatives of true and well tried Ameri- 
cans ; may they see to it that the liberty bought by the blood of their anees 
tors remains secure in all coming time. 

By George W. Jackman, Jr., Esq. 

Out Returned Sons and Daughters, and all others who arc with us on this 
occasion — May the re-union this day formed between them and us, be lasting 

10 



110 THE NEWliURYrORT CEJUBBB I 

,tnd long remembered, nnd as inseparable as the hills; and if an; 
! :Muld be formed I • tween any of the '-ons and daughters, from 
or at home, may it be an agreeable one through life, and signalized by all 
the "events" that are accustomed to occur in such unions. 

— His untiring industry and 

lie energy, do honor to his early nurture, and afford a bright exam' 
pic for the young. 

77« M — who has lift a monument of his wisdom, 

benevolence and love of home and of mankind, a3 prominent and enduring 
as the everlasting hills. 

Appended to a letter from Wm. II. Tyler, Esq., Mayor of 

. was the following sentiment: 

Our Nativt Homt — We love it, and arc happy once more to breathe its air ; 
its moral atmosphere we have taken to our adopted home. 

By Frank W. Miller, of the Portsmouth Chronicle. 

/. ,, /'. SMUaber, /'sq.,of the Boslo,, '■■■ philos' 

opher, and Ou inimitable humorist: — So long -as the sayings of " Airs. Parting- 
ton" shall be treasured np in the memory of mirth or deep sensibility, may 
mber, with gratitude, that to him arc we indebted for these glorious 
reunions. And while we of the Blow old Granite State are proud thai 
Portsmouth established the precedent in these heart-festivals, we are 
happy to aid you in enjoying a design conceived in so much grandeur am! 
carried out to such pen 

By Col. Swett, of Boston. 

/,'. i ]>r. Dana — Uis actions ; than words; for while he attempts 

to convince US of original sin, he shows by his lift that lie is free from it. 

The lateness of the hour, (it being nearly eight o'clock when 
the company retired from the pavilion,) prevented the reading 
of numerous toasts which were prepared for the occasion. 



* The following letter, from the Hon. Albert Pike of Arkan- 
sas, in reply to an invitation to speak to the citizens of New- 
buryport upon this occasion, we insert, as deserving a place in 
this report. 

Little Kock, Arkansas, June 7, 1854. 

i have been gui using in 

Although I reached here from the Bast more than three weeks 

since, 1 was immediately compelled to visit a distant part of the State to' 



LETTERS. Ill 

attend a case, and it was only yesterday that I a.-ain reached home, you will 
therefore please pardon the unavoidable delay of answer to your letter. 

When I left the East, hue in April, ii was my full expectation and intention 
again to be there in the latter part of the present month, but since my return, 

■.:nces have occurred that render it utterly impossible. I m 
reluctantly forego the pleasure of once more visiting the old town, walking 
its well-remembered streets, being greeted by the pleasant smiles of old 
familiar faces, and welcomed to my old home with the old hearty good 
humor and kindness. 

And I will not deny, but frankly admit that it would afford me the greatest 
pleasure, before I die, to address the people among whom I was born and 
reared, upon such an occasion as that of our National Anniversary. It would 
be the proudest day of my life. I thank the City Council and Committee for 
the invitation tin ided, and you for the very flattering terms in 

which it has been conveyed. 

Respectfully your servant, 

ALBERT PIKE. 



The annexed letters from absent sons of Newbuiyport, were 
received by the Mayor, and announced, but for want of time, 
not read. 

New Okleass, June 24, 1854. 
To his Honor, the ^^at/or of Xeichurijport : 

Sir: As a son of Xewburyport, it was my purpose to accept your invita- 
tion to return to the place of my nativity, and join with you in the celebration 
of the day of our nation's independence. 

A re-union of this kind has often suggested itself to my mind, and last 
year I indulged the hope it might be brought about, towards the close of the 
summer. Being at that time a resident of New York, I found many natives 
and former inhabitants of the " good old town," who expressed themselves 
warmly in favor of such a plan as that which promises now to bi 
through, with the most gratifying success. It was found, however, to be too 
late in the season to perfect the arrangements, for that year, and the idea was 
relinquished, with the understanding that it should be revived the next 

Spring. 

Since that time, my lot has been cast in a part of our common country -till 
more remote from my native home. But the chain that binds me to it, though 
lengthened by many added links, is still unbroken. It is an clectn 
and sensitive to the slightest touch of memory and association. I thank you, 
sir, and those you represent, for the test you have made of its integrity and 
power; and assure you most sincerely that no one of all the hearts to which 
your affectjpnatc appeal has been made, beats with a truer and more cordial 



112 THE NEWBURYPORT CELEBRATION. 

response than my own ; though I am prevented, by circumstances beyond my 
control, fr h Iling you so in person. 

Sir, one half of my life was spent in your beautiful city. That term 
included my childhood, my youth, and my early manhood. Conn 
blood with more than one family there, ami by intimate association with many 
others— and by all, I feel an excusable pride, I trust, in say ing, still honorably 
remembered among you— there is a store of old recollections of those early 
yean laid up in my memory, which such an invitation as yours was sure to 
awaken, and that an acceptance of it, were that possible, would greatly deepen 
and intensify. 

" The house where I was born," and many a house that was its neighbor — 
the home lireside, the fields through which, and the companions with whom I 
i" "| I at will ; the trees, whose venerable trunks were as well known to mo 
as the forms of men, and out of whose fantastically grouped foliage fancy 
used to form familiar faces ; the blue and sparkling river, to cross which, on 
a holiday, was one of the joyous incidents of my childhood's days; "the 
sound of the church-going hell ;" the message and the messenger its . bjme 
invited me to hear; the grassy grave with. mi, the bridal altar within thai little 
church ; these, and many, many more than these, arc the associations which 
your affectionate bidding home have awakened. 

He assured, sir, and do me the favor to assure those wh< m you represent, 
that, far wanderer from the cherished scenes of my childhood and my youth, 
as my lot in life has made me, I am yet, and feel that I ever shall be, a loyal 
" Son of Newbun 

And as such, sir, permit me to subscribe myself, 

Your friend and brother, 

JAMES P. OTIS. 

Accompanying tho above was the following sentiment: 

Newburyport—" Hot children rise up and call her blessed." May their 
children's children, to the latest generation, repeat the filial benediction. 



B.u.i.Aniisvn.r.E, Oldham Co. Ky. June 20, 1854. 
TMir Sir: 

Having in the week past received the Herald of the 10th inst. containing 
the card of your committee, kindly inviting the absent Sons and Daughters 
and former residents t" return and participate in the celebration of the glo- 
rious Fourth, and having [nest from my relatives, to the 
same effect, I feel that I OUghl ' I for it. 

■ thrill with lively enthusiasm, 

' iprcst ible desire 

to visit i birth and my childhood, and the last resting place of 



LETTERS. 113 

my ancestors of generations past ; but ties not to bo severed hold me back 
for a time. Yet absent in person, my heart and soul shall be with you on the 
occasion. Permit me to submit this sentiment. 

-< great Family Festival — May the gratulationa and affiliations of this 
day raise a pyramid of grateful emotions and kind affections, whose base 
shall be as broad as the earth, and whoso apex shall reach up to Heaven — 
may the rich and the poor, the high and the lowly, without rank or distinc- 
tion, link in one common bond to make it a day to be remembered by all, 
and registered in the annals of ages. 

Yours in friendship and esteem, 

JOHN SWAIN, If. D. 



The subjoined letter from the Committee from the City Gov- 
ernment, and reply of Hon. George Lunt, we insert as matters 
connected with the occasion. 

City Hall, Newbceitort, July 11, 1S54. 
D. Wildes: 

Dear Sir : At a meeting of the City Council, held last evening, the under- 
signed were appointed a "joint special committee," to present to you the 
thanks of the City Government, for the able and patriotic Oration delivered 
before the Sons and Daughters of Xewburyport, on the late anniversary of 
American Independence, and to request a copy of the same for the press. 

F. J. COFFIN, 1 

\VM. GRAVES, 

HENRY BARTLETT, }• Committee. 

D. S. BLAKE, 

EDWARD BURRILL, J 

Boston, July 15, 1854. 
Gentlemen : Your note, addressed to my kinsman, Rev. Geo. D. Wildes, 
requesting for the press a copy of the Oration delivered by him, before the 
Sons and Daughters of Newburyport, on the 4th instant, has been received 
by me. 

Mr. Wildes sailed for Europe on the day following that of the Anniversary. 
He had previously placed the manuscript in my hands, to be disposed of as 
mces might warrant. I gladly transmit it to you, rejoicing in your 
desire to give permanent form to whatever may tend to illustrate that happy 
meeting " at home," long to be recurred to with deep and gratified feelings, 
by all who have any concern in the welfare of our native town. 
I am, gentlemen, very respectfully, 

Your friend and servant, 

GEORGE LUNT. 
Messrs. F. J. Coffin, Wm. Graves, Henry Uartlctt, D. S. Blake, Edward 
Bun-ill, Committee. 



CONCLTJSK >N. 



I.I A i .1 . \ T CITY HALL. 
This was a glorious re-union, in which the old and the young, 
the grave and gay, mingled, filling the entire building. Among 
the distinguished personages we noticed the Attorney General 
of the United States. The hall had been specially fitted for 
the occasion, and wa ma ;ni a I. Strips of 

buntin run from the centre to the corners of the hall, the sides 
were hung with festoons of the same material ; behind the 
rostrum was a very large and beautiful portrait of Washington, 
enclosed by two American flags, over which an arch of ever- 
green, intermingled with silver stars. At the entrance was a 
large arch, trimmed with evergreen, enclosed by two 
ones. Hound the large one, and enclosing two hands united, 
was the motto, " The same cordial grasp I loved so long ago." 
Also other decorations, which served to make the appearance 
if the hall really enchanting. Here, in promenading, waltzing, 
and conversation, much of the night was whilod away, and 
the concluding of this great city party ended a day that will 
ever bo remembered in the history of Newburyport. 



1 a r.NiN. . ri ;i;r< >i;m \\< r.s. 

The thousands of strangers in the city — most of whom re- 
mained over night, though the ears went out in all dii> 
Crowded, and not less than one thousand persons were waiting 
the outward trains at the Eastern Depot, at 1:2 o'clock Tues- 
day night — who sought acquaintance, entertainment and 



OOUCLI 115 

niont, at the jirivatc dwellings of our citizens, that were 
liberal! . a— at the public Hall, and on the ground, 

in the vicinity of the Mall ; and never were happiness and joy 
more universal. 

ENi ii.' 

As night set in, brilliant bonfires marked the position of the 
Various eminences in the vicinity, while " the r 
glare " on every hand showed that the counl rmined 

not be entirely outdone by the city in ] 

The " Andrews Sharp-shooters " turned out in the morning 
in fatigue uniform, and erected a large bonfire on Indian Hill, 
where there was the customary disj lay of fire-wi 



Masonic re-union 

St. John's Lodge, which was originally chartered in 177w, 
and has recently been re-organized under the most encouraging 

circumstances, received tho " Brethren of the Mystic Tie " on 
Monday evening. The hall was decorated for the occasion 
with evergreen, flowers, and devices — a masonic arch standing 
in the East, on which was inscribed " Welcome to St. John's." 
The ceremonies of the evening were not, of course, communi- 
cated to the uninitiated, but we learn that there was a large 
number present, embracing several of the reverend clergy and 
other eminent individuals. The rc-union of those who received 
their first degrees from " St. John's " in " Auld Lang Sync," 
and have since testified to the excellence of the institution in 
various parts of Christendom, must have been highly agreeable 
and satisfactory. 



■riu. iii;i:\\okks 
Were more extended than usual, and superior in design and 
quality ; and the enthusiasm of the multitude who were in 



THE M.u i.i i:\ POM I U.MikVi [Off. 

from all the surrounding towns, and the frequent cheering, 
evidenced the gratification of the spectators. 



Thus passed one of the days long to be remembered by the 
present generation as the brightest period in the history of our 
young city. Had the day been more auspicious the i 
might have been more extensive, yet upon the whole the occa- 
sion could not have given greater joy. Great credit is due to 
our city authorities, to private individuals who contribt 
bounteously, and to the citizens generally. It has been 
rumored that one or two delegations from neighboring cities 
were disappointed in not meeting, upon their arrival, with a 
formal reception and escort. In behalf of the city 
ment, the compiler would here remark that every moment of 
the time from early dawn until the inarch of the procession, 
■was consumed in receiving delegations at the City Hall, and 
it is to be regretted that the arrangements were not more gener- 
ally understood. The ( Ihief .Marsha!. in concert with the authori- 
ties, used every exertion to wait upon the various bodies and 
escort them to the Hall, but owing to the irregularity 
trains, and their simultaneous arrival at the different stations, 
it was impossible to pay that attention to each delegation that 
the pleasure of Marshal and Committees would dictate. 

In conclusion, we would hope that the remembrance of this 
festival may stimulate us to patriotism and virtue, and that 
the lessons taught us on the occasion may draw us nearer 
together and make us a community determined to advai 
only our own and others' interests, but the general welfare of 
a city, than which no other can boast of higher advantages. 



Errata. Col. Swctt's speech, 9th line, for "sports" of boyhoo 
"port" of boyhood. In poem, aid line, for " nature's" band, read " 

hand. 



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